After Trump’s military ban, this nonbinary 11-year Air Force veteran found a new mission at Harvard

Retired U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Parker Dubois used to have a ready answer when someone thanked them for their military service: “Thank you for your taxes.”

The nonbinary veteran spent 11 years in the Air Force and taught the next generation of airmen how to lead. They canceled their wedding to deploy to Afghanistan.

This Veterans Day, the familiar exchange carries a harder question. Dubois served a country whose president has declared transgender people incompatible with military service. They spent 2025 preparing others for military careers while confronting the end of their own.

Now 34 and attending Harvard Kennedy School, Dubois is learning to imagine another future. But in a November 9 interview with The Advocate, they described a loss that admission to an elite university cannot simply erase: their community, their anticipated career, and their confidence that doing the job well would be enough.

Related: Air Force veteran stripped of retirement under Trump's transgender purge

“Every day is a little bit of a challenge waking up and not immediately putting on a uniform,” they said.

Parker Dubois

Teaching values while living the contradiction

Dubois had expected to serve for 30 years. Their work centered on becoming the kind of leader other people could depend on, and their performance earned recognition: In 2025, they were named their squadron’s noncommissioned officer of the year for 2024, they told The Advocate.

President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order portrayed transgender identity as incompatible with military readiness and asserted that a gender identity inconsistent with sex conflicts with an “honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.” The administration’s stated rationale cast doubt on the character of people already serving.

Dubois experienced that judgment while continuing to teach leadership.

They said they could meet standards associated with their sex assigned at birth and were required to keep working throughout 2025, without time away to search for jobs or prepare for civilian life.

Related: Trans service members have always been part of U.S. history

“The worst part about all of that is that my job was to teach leadership to the next generation of military leaders,” they said.

The contradiction followed them into the classroom. How could they teach integrity, service before self, and excellence while feeling the institution that invoked those values had abandoned them?

“It was the worst year of my life,” Dubois said.

They described worsening depression, returning to therapy, resuming medication, and drinking heavily. They struggled to envision a future beyond the military. Eventually, they said, leaders acknowledged that their focus on keeping an effective instructor working had eclipsed concern for the person doing that work.

Dubois ultimately received a medical retirement based on earlier mental health conditions, they said. They understood that outcome as a protection many transgender peers did not receive, which brought guilt alongside relief.

They had spent their formative years in uniform. Now their career had ended. But their belief in service had not.

“I truly believe that the military made me the person I am today,” they said.

In Alaska, building a place to belong

Parker Dubois

Originally from Rhode Island, Dubois spent five years at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. There, amid bitter cold and long summer daylight, they found some of the strongest LGBTQ+ support of their military career.

They came out as nonbinary during a workplace presentation about LGBTQ+ representation in media. Their teammates responded warmly. But Dubois soon realized that acceptance varied across the installation.

They wanted a place where people could talk, find support, and build relationships. Their wife, they joked, had already heard plenty about what being nonbinary meant.

Related: The Trump administration is paying trans troops not to work

So Dubois built an LGBTQ+ organization.

It began with four people and grew to nearly 170 within a year, they said. Members included service members, allies, and parents of LGBTQ+ children. Commanders attended Pride events. People came because they needed company and knew they would be welcome.

When diversity cuts ended the organization’s presence on the installation, Dubois said, they continued it as PRISM Alaska.

The group’s growth helped shape their understanding of leadership. By creating a place for LGBTQ+ people, Dubois had also built something that parents, allies, and others across the installation wanted to join.

They brought that approach into the classroom, too. At the beginning of a course, Dubois would introduce themselves, explain their pronouns, and tell students that this was a learning environment.

Some students rolled their eyes, “on day one,” they recalled. By the end of the six-week course, some initially skeptical students were in their office expressing respect for their leadership.

“And I would lead everyone the same exact way,” Dubois said. “It didn’t matter who they were.”

An application, then a different future

Parker Dubois

The opening arrived on LinkedIn.

In September 2025, Dubois saw Space Force Col. Bree Fram, who is trans, share information about Harvard’s American Service Fellowship. The program provides a full scholarship and a stipend for a one-year master’s degree in public administration.

“I never thought that I was Harvard material ever,” Dubois said.

But they applied. Colleagues reviewed five essays. The organization Service to School helped with the application. Dubois asked leaders who had acknowledged failing them to write recommendations.

About a month after leaving the military, they learned they had been admitted.

Arriving at Harvard, Dubois wondered whether the school had chosen the wrong person. Finding that accomplished classmates shared similar insecurities helped.

More consequential was finding a community that understood service as something that could continue beyond a uniform.

Parker Dubois

Dubois now imagines serving on a town council or working as a town or city manager. They remain in therapy and participate in a support group. Their recovery is ongoing, alongside the practical work of deciding where their experience can matter most.

The fellowship, Dubois said, “gave me my purpose back.”

Harvard has not replaced the military career they expected. It has given them people who recognize what they brought to that career and opportunities to put those skills to work elsewhere.

For Veterans Day, Dubois has a challenge for people who oppose transgender military service but celebrate veterans: Consider whose service you are willing to recognize.

“They have to come to terms with the fact that I am a veteran,” they said.