Steve Snyder-Hill joined the military in 1988 and served nearly three years on active duty in Germany and fought in the first Gulf War in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait before receiving an honorable discharge in 1996. He re-enlisted in 2001 and was deployed to Iraq in support of Operation New Dawn in 2010.
Snyder-Hill endured years of service under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and in September 2014 published his account of what it was like serving under DADT. His book, Soldier of Change, is the first memoir published by a military person serving under that policy.
After DADT was repealed in September 2011 Snyder-Hill famously submitted a video question to a Republican primary debate asking what Republicans thought about the repeal and their plans, if any, to extend spousal benefits to legally married gay and lesbian soldiers. His video was booed by the audience on national television.
Since that moment Snyder-Hill has been on a journey not only chronicling his experiences as a gay man in the services but becoming an LGBT activist, travelling the country with his husband Josh giving interviews with major news networks, speaking at universities, community centers and Pride parades becoming a true champion of LGBT equality.
Snyder-Hill will be in San Diego March 26-29 for the fourth annual OutServe-SLDN San Diego Leadership Conference where he is one of the keynote speakers.
Prior to the conference San Diego LGBT Weekly managed to catch up with Snyder-Hill to talk to him about his journey and what the future held.
San Diego LGBT Weekly: Steve, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. You had a long and distinguished career in the military. How did you cope with keeping your private life secret during all those years?
Steve Snyder-Hill: One of the things I talk about in my book is that this is not just my story; it is all of our story. That fits in with this answer so well. We train ourselves to be professional liars. We worry about what everyone else will think of our answer before we speak. This is the way we have lived our lives out of survival. Being in the military was the same thing. I could have lost my job, so I had to do it out of necessity. Early in my career I couldn’t even admit to myself I was gay or face it; so in a lot of ways that point of my life was easier. It was when I came back in, that was the hardest time of my life. Josh and I had to say goodbye before going to war hiding underneath an escalator crying so no one would see us. But times are changing. People are coming out and telling their stories, athletes, actors, teachers; telling your story is the most powerful thing you can do!
How did your partner, now husband, Josh cope with the stress of being forced to live a lie?
In a lot of ways Josh is a soldier too. He had to serve just as much as I did as a spouse waiting at home for me. But not having support is so much harder for an LGBT spouse than it was for our straight counterparts. When we were hiding under that escalator, I looked out and saw the wives hugging and exchanging numbers and becoming friends and building a support system. I looked at Josh and he was alone. Josh’s name was Jessica while I was deployed; I had to turn my cell phone volume down so no one could hear him when I talked. That is just really rough. I think the hardest moment was our first Yellow Ribbon event. Josh came with my parents and said he was my brother. He told me later he wanted so badly to cry, and sat there and battled in his mind how it would look and told me it was the hardest thing he ever had to do to fight those tears back.
In September 2011, when you submitted that now famous question to the Republican primary debate, what prompted you to do that? What were your thoughts on the reaction you received? Was it at this point that you realized quite how much work still needed to be done?
Wow this is a question that I could probably write another book about! Actually my book Soldier of Change: From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement answers ‘what prompted me.’ But in a nutshell, the book is mostly about my journey of acceptance for myself. People don’t realize that when they pick it up. But by living through my eyes and seeing how hard it was to admit to myself I was gay, and then learn to accept it, and then actually having the courage for loving myself for who I was; that was quite a journey. I want to be able to take the reader through that journey as if they were experiencing it themselves. So for the why, well that answers it. For 26 years I fought for everyone else’s freedom except mine.
After I had gone through these experiences I talk about in my book that led up to the debate, one of the pivotal things that happened was they could not come up with a date for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Now get this, because they didn’t want to affect the morale of people actually out there serving. How do you think that made me feel, or any of the 14,000 servicemembers who lost their job because they were gay? That was such a powerful statement that made me think people are not even thinking about us making up names, hiding under escalators, lying just to serve the country we love. I thought someone needed to stand up and ask that question that night.
The reaction: This will surprise most people. Yes, being booed on national TV when you are actually fighting a war sucked. But that isn’t what killed me. What gutted me inside was that Rick Santorum in one second on national TV reduced my entire 26 honorable, decorated military service career to sex. And even though it wasn’t a lot of people who booed, I watched as that entire audience stood up and gave him a standing ovation. That hurt so bad. I have always been a good soldier, never gotten into trouble, always do the right thing. I pass PT, I qualify at the range, I never miss a day at drill and I have fought in two wars. I have given 26 years of my life to my country and he took it all away and reduced it to sex. I wasn’t asking to have sex in the military. I was asking not to be kicked out because I am gay. I don’t want to be treated any differently. I want the same conduct standards.
So, how much needs to be done? Well, I look at it this way. We have accelerated tolerance and acceptance to lightning speed over the last few years. What is our secret gay agenda? What is our formula for this huge monumental shift in public opinion? It is that we are being honest; we are telling our stories. We are human beings, we have emotions and feelings and we can be hurt. We can be tough as nails, we can fight in war. We can be football players, we can be actors. We come in every race, size, gender and people are seeing that through our stories. This is how we have accelerated acceptance. We are changing hearts and minds through our stories.
Why do you think it took so long to repeal DADT?
It took so long because people used the same fear tactics to keep it out of conversation for years. If I hear “Unit Cohesion” one more time. Let me tell you a story about that. I have many great friends that are in the Army. I have lied to them for years. I dodged Facebook requests, and made up excuses for not friending them. Later talking to them after the fact, I realized that being closeted and awkward for all those years destroyed my cohesion with them. They thought I didn’t like them. They could tell I was avoiding them and shutting them out. After DADT, it is so much the opposite now. We are much closer. We would take a bullet for each other, there is no more lying. I am so protective over my soldiers and we are really like a family now. Being able to be who you are is so powerful and makes you such a better person!
Someone had Rick Santorum on TV and was asking him about unit cohesion, and why he opposed DADT. They gave him a quote about unit cohesion and asked him if it sounded about right (in response to my question). He verified that it was correct. Then the anchor from Fox news informed him that was a quote (“The army is not a sociological laboratory. Experimenting with policy, especially in a time of war, would pose a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale and would result in ultimate defeat.”) from Col. Eugene Householder about racial integration in the military from World War II. That is why it took so long to repeal DADT, because hate is hate. But people can disguise it very cleverly with fancy words. But eventually it will come out for what it is. And that has happened. The military hasn’t blown up since DADT repeal, it became stronger and more diverse.
When did you decide to write Soldier of Change, and what was your motivation for writing the book?
I had to meet with an Army PAO after the debate. We were supposed to spend an hour or two together so he could coach me, or let me know how to engage the media. I started telling him stories that I discuss in the book; hiding pictures in my own house, making up fake names for Josh, etc. About half way through the day he told me that he had to confess his 21-year-old son came out to him not too long ago. He said listening to these stories make me feel like I understand my son better, because I grew up macho. I stopped him and said your son grew up and society taught him the same stuff about gay people that society taught you. Your son has to unlearn all that, before he can even start to understand himself, I said. So now you know your son better. He looked at me and smiled and said you should write a book! So there you go! Actually at the end of the day, he said Capt. Hill, you could let all this fizzle out and it would go away. He said and it will go away, or he said, you could tell your story. He paused and I waited to hear what came next. He said I think it would be a tragedy for you not to tell your story. It is a powerful story; it is a good Army story. It shows why DADT was a bad policy.
My motivation is to help people understand themselves better, to help a parent feel more connected to their gay child. I want people to identify with this story and relate it to their own. The No. 1 comment I have gotten, is people always say, I could have written this story, word for word; I connected with what you were saying. That makes me so proud. This story is not about me, it is not for making money or fame; I could care less about that. It is about humans connecting with humans and understanding each other better.
What advice would you give a young gay or lesbian person wanting to join the services?
The military was one of the best choices I have ever made in my career. It is a professional organization and has taught me a lot. It has provided for me, and gotten me through rough times. It is a privilege, and an honor to wear the uniform, no matter what race we are, religion, sexual orientation or gender. It is a privilege because we are fighting for people without a voice and making sure that every human being has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. No job in the world can beat that!
Advice? Be yourself and never change yourself for anyone else! Be proud of who you are, and don’t be afraid to speak up for yourself or others.
What is your view on open transgender service and how long do you think it will be before it will be permitted?
People are scared of what they do not know. I am not transgender. I could not tell you in a million years what it is like for them or the struggle they have. Our own gay community has been slow to accept and advocate for the trans community. I think it is because by nature if we cannot feel it, if we haven’t experienced it, then we don’t understand it. But the solution is simple. Ask yourself what you would expect from the world we live in. If you were black and someone else was not, would you want them not to accept you because they didn’t understand what it was like to be black; would you want them to fear you and make you drink from separate fountains? For gay people who don’t make an attempt to walk in a trans person’s shoes, shame on us. We are constantly asking people to accept us and understand the struggle we have. Are we all not different? I think when people look at it like that we won’t fear trans people. We will understand their struggle is real.
I just listened to a good trans friend of mine who was terrified to use a restroom. He honestly didn’t feel comfortable in either of them. How crazy is that? Do we care about the gender of the person in the restroom that we go into? We fear what we don’t understand. I have no right to tell someone else how to feel about themselves, or how to live their lives any more than anyone has that right to do to me. I am so proud of anyone who can be honest and true to themselves, gay, straight, trans – I don’t care you just need to be you!
As far as the military, we will evolve. Women just started serving in combat MOS’s. So we took a long time to decide that someone’s ability to do their job in the military doesn’t depend on their genitals. So by that same logic, trans people are linguists, they are special forces, they are forward observers, they are jag officers. They have a lot of talent that we are losing because they are not allowed. Eventually history corrects itself. How will they achieve that? Telling their story.
As an LGBT activist, what projects are you involved in today?
Josh and I are very active in Ohio. In our own state we have more protection on a military base in Ohio as a married couple than we have in our own home. We are working to change that. We are very active travelling and speaking. That is where I feel we have made the most progress. We took 25 couples to the Supreme Court before Doma and got them married on the steps of the Supreme Court. We are telling our story. When a security guard came over at the Supreme Court and said I can’t let you guys up there as a group, but by God nothing can stop each one of you going up as a couple on your own. Wow, the power of that. Who knows, maybe one of those justices was looking out the window that day. Never underestimate the power of telling your story.
How do you feel about being a keynote speaker at the upcoming Outserve-SLDN Leadership Conference?
I am very excited. The first thing I write in my book is I owe everything to my LGBT brothers and sisters who have served in silence for too long. And I do feel that way! I am excited because SLDN spearheaded our lawsuit against the DOD, and there is so much work to be done. After DADT everyone just got complacent. Our trans community is crying out for protection, and for someone to pick up the torch where we left off after DADT and OutServe-SLDN should take that charge!
Finally, if there is one message you could give our readers what would that be?
Always trust the power of your voice!
Steve, thank you so much for your time.
