“Margarethe Cammermeyer was born on March 24, 1942 in Oslo, Norway. Her family immigrated to the United States in 1951, settling near Washington, D.C. She became an American citizen in 1960. From 1959 to 1963 she attended the University of Maryland, College Park, earning a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing. In 1961, while at the University of Maryland, she joined the Army Student Nurse Program. Upon graduation in 1963, she reported for active duty, serving in the United States Army Nursing Corps at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, Martin Army Hospital at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and a 2-year tour in Nuremberg, Germany. In Germany she married fellow soldier, Harvey Hawken, in 1965. At her request in 1967, she was sent to the 24th Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh, Vietnam where she served for 14 months as head nurse of a medical unit and of the neurosurgical intensive care unit. She was awarded a Bronze Star. She was forced to leave the military in 1968 when she became pregnant with the first of her four sons, as women were not permitted to have dependents.

After returning from Vietnam, she settled in Seattle, Washington with her family. She continued her work as a nurse and in 1971 began working at the Veterans’ Administration Hospital. She continued working in VA Medical Centers, including those in Seattle, San Francisco, and American Lake, until her retirement in 1996. She was honored as the Veterans’ Administration Nurse of the Year in 1985. She supplemented her appointment at the VA with part-time work as a lecturer and consultant. She also continued her studies, graduating from the University of Washington with Masters of Arts in Nursing in 1976 and a Ph.D. in Nursing Science in 1991. She divorced in 1980.

The military played an important role in her life. In 1972 when the regulation prohibiting women from serving with dependents was lifted, she joined the Army Reserves, achieving the rank of Colonel in 1987. In 1988, she accepted the position of Chief Nurse of the Washington State National Guard. That same year she began a relationship with Diane Divelbess. In 1989, during an interview for top-secret clearance she told the interviewer, "I am a lesbian." As a result, she was separated from the military on June 1, 1992. On the same day, Lambda Legal and the Northwest Women’s Law Center filed suit on her behalf in Federal District Court in Seattle, challenging Cammermeyer’s discharge and the military’s regulations that mandated that lesbians and gay men be separated from the service. In June 1994, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly held that the ban on gays in the military violated the equal protection and due process guarantees of the U.S. Constitution and ordered the Army to reinstate Cammermeyer. She was reinstated in the Washington National Guard and resumed her position as Chief Nurse. The government did not appeal Cammermeyer’s right to be reinstated, but in its appeal asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to strike the judge’s ruling from the books. The ruling took issue with the older ban as well as new the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy which was enacted in 1993. In October 1996, the Court of Appeals dismissed the government’s appeal as moot and denied the government’s request to vacate the district court’s ruling, sending the case back to the district court. In 1997 the district court denied the government’s motion to vacate, maintaining the value of the victory as precedent. In March 1997, Cammermeyer retired with full military privileges. She returned to health care work in 2006, opening an Adult Family Home to provide skilled care to the elderly. Since 2008, she has served as the Hospital Commissioner for Whidbey General Hospital.

Cammermeyer’s experiences with the military’s antigay policies inspired her to become involved in LGBT activism and politics. In 1994, she published a memoir, Serving in Silence; it was adapted into an Emmy winning television movie in 1995. Her first involvement in politics was in 1998 when she ran as a Democratic candidate for the United States Congress in Washington. Though she did not win the congressional seat, she continues to be involved in local politics, serving as the Chairperson of her local Democratic party. Between 1999 and 2001 she hosted the Grethe Cammermeyer Show, a daily internet talk show, on GAYBC Radio Network. She serves on the Military Advisory Council for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and the Defense Advisory Council of Women in the Services. Cammermeyer and her wife, artist Diane Dievelbess, have been involved in activism around a number of LGBT causes, including marriage equality. In 2012, after same-sex marriage was legalized in Washington, Cammermeyer and Divelbess became the first same-sex couple to get a marriage license in Island County.”

Source: Finding aid biography, Margarethe Cammermeyer Papers (Collection 2186). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles