[News/People] [DE, USA] Ashley's story: life as a transgender active duty service member at Dover Air Force Base

[Stephanie Stevens]

Delaware Public Media, DE, USA


August 20, 2017

Ashley's story: life as a transgender active duty service member at Dover Air Force Base

By Megan Pauly


[Photo: 39-year-old transgender veteran Ashley Register stands outside her Dover home.]



A few weeks ago, President Trump tweeted that transgender troops would be banned from serving in the military. But policy hasn’t been changed yet, and the future for transgender service members remains uncertain.

In light of this, we’re taking a look at the experience of a transgender active duty service member in the Dover Air Force Base a few years ago.

Delaware Public Media's Megan Pauly will tell Ashley's story throughout the week. Each day, we'll update this page with a new chapter.

Chapter 1: Joining the Air Force

[Audio: Listen to chapter one of Ashley's story. (1:21) ]

39-year-old Ashley Register served in the U.S. Air Force over 17 years, all the while hiding her true identity. She grew up in North Carolina.

 “For a long time, I was kind of the kid who got picked on in school," Register said. "It was just something I dealt with and I learned to live with for a long time, and it was terrible.”

In addition to being bullied, she was also sexually abused. She recently went to a seven-week inpatient program in Virginia to help her work through some past traumas she says she hadn’t confronted before. She says she wouldn’t be talking to me if it wasn’t for that program.

“It was a hard program, it was hard to go and face all the things that you lock away inside that you never want to think about again, letting go of resentment that you’ve held for years," Register said. "And just learning to love myself for who I am and not for anything that’s happened to me in the past, or anything that might happen to me in the future or anything that somebody may think about me now. It doesn't matter.”

Ashley participated in junior ROTC in high school and joined the Air Force immediately after graduating from high school.

“I kind of saw the military as really one of my only options because of how my childhood was," she said. "I didn’t really prepare myself for anything coming out of high school, but the military was there and I had family members that had been in the military.”

One family member, in particular, was a role model: her grandfather. He served in the Air Force during World War II.

“He was a bombardier, he didn’t talk about it a lot," Register said. "He had some traumatic experiences of his own during that time. He was probably the person in my family that I felt the most love from.”

As she started basic training in Texas, she embarked on a years-long process of suppressing her true identity of Ashley.

 We’ll be telling her story throughout the week on Morning Edition and All Things Considered here on Delaware Public Media. 


http://delawarepublic.org/post/ashleys-story-life-transgender-active-duty-service-member-dover-air-force-base