Haley Holm
Haley Holm is a veteran air force pilot. She completed 22 combat missions in Afghanistan. But during this time, Haley was known as Jim. Jim was described by friends as a very masculine man from a military family. But Jim had a secret. He longed to be female. How does a person find the courage to explore a new identity in one of the most male dominated workplaces in the world? For Haley…it was one sock at a time.
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In this episode:
Haley’s first memories of questioning her gender.
Joining the Airforce and finishing at the top of the class.
Stepping out as Haley for the first time and navigating this new identity.
Letting go of her biological family and gaining a new support system.
What it means to belong and provide a safe space for others.
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Instagram: @haley_go_lightly
Charity: The Paseo Project
Wise Words:
You basically had to stay awake for 20 hours at a time. You could take a little nap here and there, but for me, naps were not part of the equation in a combat zone. One of the things they would give us is essentially amphetamines that keep us awake. So you would take those things and just stay awake for all this time. Then you would get back and have to take Ambien to go to sleep. Otherwise you'd be awake for like three days. I'm surprised my heart didn't explode.
There were some themes around that job. Some of that is just not human. It's not really normal to go out and kill people. Yet here we are faced with this idea that that's our business. That's what we do for work. Everything we do is centered around learning how to kill people and break their stuff.
So that was the mentality. We used the term “fangs out.” That's what you brought to work every day. This very aggressive skillset and mentality. Coping with that was interesting. I think I was more gentle than most.
This yearning to be female would not go away. I didn't know what to do with it. I was starting to get concerned about it. And that's about the time that Kaitlyn Jenner showed up on the scene and she was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair.
“Call me Kaitlyn” it said. And I remember looking at that photo and being like, wow, she's this incredible athlete, a very masculine frame person. If she can pull that off, then I can do that too.
I thought that this would be the end of my life as I knew it. Not in the sense that I would die from it, but in the sense that everything I had would probably go away.
I think the stakes are a lot higher as an adult too. I’m in my mid to late thirties at that point, and a woman in her mid to late thirties has her act together generally with the makeup and the clothes and the shoes. I felt like I was at a major disadvantage and that I was sprinting to catch up.
And that was really difficult. Really difficult.
I feel like creating that safe space. I'm transgender, but I'm also this professional pilot and I can fly this plane as good or better than you.
We have more in common than maybe you think we do. And it's just a matter of being human. So much of these anti L G B T Q laws and rhetoric is about dehumanizing someone. I think just by being present, by being a participant in this cockpit, I’m showing them that maybe I'm not someone they need to be afraid of.
My hope is that when I impact one person that maybe they talk to other people that they've been talking to and say, “I flew with this person and I don't think that what you said is right, or, I don't think that some of what we thought was correct for this reason or that.” Or they just speak positively about me as a person or about my skills as a pilot.
And I think that that's how change happens.
I really want ultimately for people to understand that I'm just a human being. It's not my intention to harm anyone or to change them or their way of life. Just because I believe one thing or I live in a certain way and they don't, doesn't mean that one of us is human and one of us isn't.