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Former commissioned officer Allyson Robinson, a transgender female, has been named as the new chief of the newly merged OutServe-Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (OutServe-LSDN), which works to aid LGBT servicemembers and veterans.
According to Buzzfeed, Robinson is "the first out transgender leader of a national organization representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community," as opposed to an organization focused primarily on the transgender community.
More after the jump.
In a statement Robinson said, “I am honored to lead the new OutServe-SLDN into this next phase of advocacy and action on behalf of our brave LGBT service members, veterans, and their families. Until they are guaranteed equal opportunity, recognition, support and benefits, our mission is incomplete. We cannot and will not leave them behind.”
She continued, "We have not achieved full equality for LGBT servicemembers, and I think that’s something that Americans care about. I think they care about the way that our troops and their families are treated."
“This fight is not over," Robinson tells Buzzfeed. "We’re in the middle of a fight, just as certainly as we were before ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was ever repealed. There have been some, many perhaps, who have been under this notion, ‘What’s left to do?’ There is so much left to do.”
So what are the five priorities in a post-DADT world?
Robinson lists them as: "same-sex partner benefits for servicemembers and veterans, both those that could be offered by the Pentagon now and those that would first require the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act; out transgender service; inclusion of sexual orientation and, eventually, gender identity, in the military’s nondiscrimination policy; veterans’ equal treatment, including removing less-than-honorable discharge notations for those discharged under DADT; and growth of the organization as an association of LGBT servicemembers, which was OutServe’s primary purpose before the groups merged."
Robinson leaves her previously held post at the Human Rights Campaign and replaces former SLDN head, Aubrey Sarvis, who chose to step down.
Congrats, Allyson!!
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