Diane Schroer is not one to shrink from a challenge. As
an Airborne Ranger qualified Special Forces officer, the 49-year-old veteran
completed over 450 parachute jumps, received numerous decorations including the
Defense Superior Service Medal, and was hand-picked to head up a classified
national security operation. But when she retired as a Colonel after 25 years of
distinguished service in the Army, she faced one of her biggest challenges yet:
coming out to her friends and family as a transsexual woman.
For the previous 47 years of her life, Diane had been David Schroer. "I knew I was different before I was old enough to remember things," said Diane of her childhood in Chicago. "My earliest memories are of just feeling I should be a girl and wondering why I wasn't."
Diane's ability to keep a secret served her well in her military career, but ultimately became something she wanted to stop doing in her personal life. After leaving the Army in 2004, she began researching gender issues online. "Things I'd not comprehended before started rapidly falling into place and making sense," she said. "I realized I could finally fully become who I've always known I was inside."
After a stint at a private homeland security consulting firm,
during which she was living as a woman while not at work and undergoing hormone
therapy, Diane began searching for a new career. When she interviewed for job as
the senior terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress, she thought
she'd found the perfect fit, given her background and 16,000-volume home library
collection on military history, the art of war, international relations, and
political philosophy. Diane was thrilled to get an offer shortly afterwards and
accepted quickly.
Diane, who was still going by David professionally, asked her
soon-to-be boss to lunch to talk with her about her transition. On their way to the restaurant, the
division director was chatty and friendly, excited to have her on board, and
insisted that Diane was going to love working at the Library of Congress. When Diane explained that she is
transsexual and would like to begin the job as a woman, the only question the
director asked her was which name should go on the hiring paperwork. But the next day, the director called
Diane to rescind the job offer, telling her that she wouldn’t be a good fit for
the Library of Congress.
Given that she had been considered the strongest candidate for the
position just 24 hours before and her references had been told she had already
been hired, Diane was stunned. "My first instinct was just to walk away from it.
But then I felt really hurt and insulted. After 25 years of work in places that
would make a Red Cross refugee camp look like Club Med, I was being told that I
was no longer good enough to work for the federal government."
Diane eventually contacted the American Civil Liberties Union and is now challenging the withdrawal of her job offer. She's working as an independent consultant and now lives full time as a woman. In her free time, Diane sails, rides her two Harley-Davidsons, and spends time with her many friends and her three dogs. Almost all of Diane's lifelong friends have been wonderfully supportive of her transition. "This kind of experience makes you examine what's really important in life and question your perspectives. And it has all very poignantly reminded me that the most important thing in life is good friendships. 'Priceless,' as the credit card commercial would say."