Author

Thomas A. Swann

Thomas A. Swann is a native of Florida. He served in the Marine Corps from 1976–80 and the Naval Air Reserve from 1986–1988. He reached the rank of E-6.

In 1986 he became a civilian employee, GS-11, with a secret clearance at the Point Mugu Navy Base in Ventura County, Southern California. In December 1992, he did an interview with the Los Angeles Times where he came out of the closet as a gay veteran and supported President-Elect Bill Clinton’s plan to lift the ban on LGBTQ in the military. The Navy retaliated against him. The ACLU filed a complaint on Tom’s behalf. The litigation resulted in prompting the Navy Secretary to add sexual orientation protection for over 252,000 civilian workers. Tom was the last LGBTQ federal employee to have his secret clearance challenged by the government.

In 1993, Tom was the second person introduced on stage carrying the rainbow flag before one million people and C-SPAN TV at the March on Washington for LGBTQ civil rights. In 2001, he led the effort to dedicate America’s first LGBTQ Veterans Memorial in Cathedral City, California. In 2019, this memorial became a state memorial. In 2016, Tom and his husband, Guillermo Hernandez, held the very first same-sex marriage in immigration detention history. This was an international news story.