LAILA IRELAND
Preferred pronouns: she, her, hers Membership Director for SPART*A (Service Members, Partners, Allies for Respect and Tolerance for All) War Veteran, deployed three times to Iraq as interrogator and medic
“The only power you have is to outwardly love somebody.”
What does it mean to be LGBTQIA+ and Asian/Pacific Islander-American? Article by Joie Ha | Photos by Cory Palencia LET’S START WITH GENDER
When we met Laila, she welcomed us with a warm hug and a smile. She is funny, positive, and an absolute joy. Despite her difficult past, Laila faces the future with confidence and determination to never back down. What was your childhood like? When I was a kid, I did not identify very well with being a boy. Growing up in a Pacific Islander, Catholic, and military family, a boy acting like a girl was unacceptable! I conformed because I was conditioned to be the boy my family thought I was. But I knew I was different; I would always want to wake up and be who I really was - a girl. My effeminate ways were frowned upon by everyone in family. They would physically discipline me and tell me, “You’re never going to be a girl; you’re never going to be part of the family.”
caretakers for when men go off to battle, but they can also be the fighters. They can play a double role, so they are seen as sacred. Now, our culture is so westernized that being mahu may be seen as different and therefore undesirable. I think it’s important to go back to our roots and remember that being transgender is not a bad thing. What was coming out like? Before my transition, I actually identified as a gay male, but that never sat well with me. Right before my first deployment, I decided to tell my mom I was gay and she was not having it. It was sobering for me because the one person that I thought was my best friend was pushing me away. She threatened to disown me. It wasn’t until eight months into my deployment that my family started talking to me again. Someone from my
What was it like being transgender and serving in the military? The military does not allow transgender people to serve, so you have to keep it to yourself. I was an interrogator, which was really hard in itself. Things got worse when I started identifying as transgender. When I came back from deployment, they started moving me from department to department to hide me because I was ‘different.’ What does it mean to be both Pacific Islander-American and transgender? In Old Hawaiian and Chamorro culture, being transgender, or mahu (two spirit), is seen as a gift. Mahu people act as
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April 2017 |Cover Story
Laila (right) with her husband Logan Ireland (left).