They have been together for 28 years and were officially married in October 2013, when gay marriage was legalized in Washington state. Warfield identified as gay growing up and when she came out to her family, they said, “We love you, and we want you to be happy.” Today, Warfield’s family includes her wife, Nancy. “When an airplane flew over it would often lead to a discussion about what kind of aircraft it was and where the pilot might be coming from or where it might be going,” she says. It was an opportunity to step out and meet people who were like you.” “Members would meet in cafes and bars outside of work, identifying each other because they were wearing articles of clothing with an airplane on it. She learned to fly in the early ’90s and quickly became involved in the NGPA. “This was a time of don’t ask, don’t tell,” says Kit Warfield, a retired flight instructor and seaplane pilot living in Seattle. The National Gay Pilots Association, the worldwide LGBTQ+ aviation community, was established in 1990 primarily as a social organization. The organization evolved as social media became popular.
This is in part the reason behind the creation of the National Gay Pilots Association. Now substitute the term LGBTQ+ for left-handed, and you have the plight of many gay persons-we use the term gay inclusively here. You may even be compelled to hide your left-handedness. On top of that, the fact that you are left-handed is the only thing people remember about you. Now, imagine you can be fired from your job for being left-handed, denied housing, physically assaulted, and there are people who think you are going to hell for being left-handed because some religions espouse the left hand is the devil’s hand. If you were left-handed, you quickly realized that you had a challenge ahead of you-most of the world is right-handed and in some cultures there is pressure for children to be right-handed-the message here is that being right-handed is “normal,” but being left-handed is not. Do you remember learning to write? You probably picked up the pencil without thinking about it-and that established your dominant hand.