Nguyen, Huong T.

Huong T. Nguyen was born in Vietnam during the last years of the Vietnam War. Her father served in the Southern Vietnamese Army as a translator for the American forces. When Saigon fell in 1975, her family missed the airlifts to the United States, and Huong's father was subsequently placed in a "reeducation camp." Unable to live under the Communist regime, Huong's family fled on boats to the United States in four "shipments" over the course of nearly two decades.

After graduating from high school in 1992, Huong immediately enlisted as a combat medic in the Army National Guard as a way to pay for college, as well as serve a country that gave her and her family a second chance at life. In college, she began drilling with the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and received a scholarship from the Army Reserve.

During those years, Huong took unusual delight in being a soldier. She enjoyed nearly every aspect of military life - polishing her boots, pressing her uniforms, cleaning her M-16, and drilling with her fellow cadets and Army Reserve service members. The military became part of Huong's extended family, instilling within her a sense of pride, honor, integrity, and camaraderie.

In her junior year of college, however, Huong met and fell in love with her current wife, Alison. After many months of hiding and lying to friends and family about their relationship, Huong decided come out to her commander in 1995, with the help of SLDN and numerous other individuals and organizations. Huong was unable to reconcile the sacrifices demanded by the then newly inked "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy with her personal sense of freedom and justice - learned from her family's journey to the United States - and pride, honor, and integrity - ironically honed by her military experience.

Huong was immediately placed on leave of absence from ROTC and the Army Reserve and stripped of her scholarship. After a year and a half of protracted proceedings, with the threat of recoupment of her scholarship money, Huong was finally disenrolled and discharged from ROTC and the Army Reserve, respectively. During this period, Huong took a leave of absence from school and was unsure of whether she would be able to secure sufficient financial assistance to continue and complete school.

Huong's plight highlights the need for colleges and universities to reconcile their non-discrimination policies, which typically forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation, with their financial and other support of on-campus ROTC programs. In particular, Huong's plight exposed the need for colleges and universities, if they do indeed allow ROTC programs on campus, to provide financial assistance to cadets who are disenrolled from the ROTC programs based on their sexual orientation.

The Chancellor of Huong's school at the time learned of her situation and marshaled sufficient financial resources to help her complete college, as well as pledged to assist in the future other cadets who find themselves in Huong's position. Moreover, he signed a national petition, with other deans and chancellors throughout the country, calling the military and ROTC programs to end discrimination against lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) cadets.

After college, Huong attended law school. In her practice, Huong has done pro bono work to secure rights for LGB clients. She has helped a gay man win political asylum, avoiding deportation to his homeland, Honduras, where he endured years of severe emotional and physical abuse by police officers based on his sexual orientation. In addition, Huong has assisted in the drafting and filing of a friend-of-the-court brief, urging the California Supreme Court to uphold the decision of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome to allow city workers to perform same-sex marriages. Huong has also served a short stint as a board member of SLDN.

Huong is presently an associate at the law firm of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati in San Francisco, where her practice focuses on intellectual property litigation. Huong lives in Oakland, California, with her wife Alison and two young sons, Theryn and Rowan.