Major Margaret Witt – The Military Trial at the Tipping Point for Gay Rights

Major Margaret Witt’s story is more relevant than ever in the face of recent challenges to LGBT rights in the military. After a highly decorated 18-year career in the Air Force, Major Margaret Witt was discharged based on an allegation that she had engaged in sexual conduct with another woman: a civilian with whom she was in a committed relationship, in their home, miles from any military base. The ACLU of Washington sued, claiming that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and its application to Witt, violated her rights of liberty and equal protection.

She won her case in 2010 and settled with the Air Force in 2011. The success of the Witt case contributed to Congress’s passage of legislation finally allowing the executive branch to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Now Witt is ready to tell her whole story to the world in her memoir, Tell: Love, Defiance, and the Military Trial at the Tipping Point for Gay Rights. Tell is a testament to the power of love to transform hearts and minds.