Meet trans vet, husband, and dad, Clayton McCallister

When Clayton McCallister walked into his Air Force recruiter’s office in rural Tennessee, he wasn’t just chasing a dream — he was trying to outrun a political time bomb. “I want to sign up,” he told the recruiter. “This is my situation. Are you willing to help me?”

At 24, McCallister is a husband, a father, and one of 32 plaintiffs in Talbott v. United States, a federal lawsuit challenging the reinstated ban on military service by transgender people. After more than a year of training, he shipped off to basic training this spring, hoping to begin the grueling path toward pararescue — a field where airmen jump out of planes into war zones to save the wounded. His wife circled June on the calendar for his return.

“We had a lot riding on this,” he said in March, just before leaving. “I quit my job. My wife and I planned for it. I’ve been training for this for a year and a half. And just because I’m trans, they want to take it all away.”

Raised in a small Tennessee town, McCallister didn’t have the language to describe what he was feeling until his early 20s. It wasn’t until college and a conversation in a honeymoon hot tub that everything shifted. “My wife asked, ‘Do you think you might be trans?’” he says. “And I realized, I think I might be.”

He began his transition in 2021. With clarity came momentum: married life, an adoption, and a goal of becoming a pararescue specialist in the U.S. Air Force.

Special Warfare is among the military’s most grueling career fields. With an 80 percent dropout rate, it demands endurance, water survival, parachuting, and combat rescue readiness. “Not many people meet these standards,” McCallister says. “But I knew I could.”

That didn’t mean the system welcomed him. Several recruiters stopped responding after he disclosed he was trans. Finally, one said yes. He started training. Then the Trump administration reinstated a ban on transgender service members.

“I’ve proven I can do this job,” McCallister says. “But I still have to fight just for the chance.” On March 18, a federal judge ruled in his favor — temporarily, noting that the ban appeared “soaked in animus.” But after an appeal from the Trump administration in another legal challenge to the ban, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the administration to enforce it while the case returns to the lower courts.

At home, McCallister is not just a would-be airman. He’s a husband, a gym rat, and a snowboarding enthusiast. And he’s a dad. “She just turned 2,” he says of his daughter. “She’s wild. Everything I do is for her.”

He doesn’t see himself as a symbol but knows what’s at stake. “We’re not asking for special treatment,” he says. “Just the chance to be judged by our abilities.”

And if his daughter ever asks why he fought so hard?

“I want to tell her I didn’t give up,” McCallister says. “That I proved them wrong. That I showed her anything’s possible.”

This article is part of The Advocate's July/Aug 2025 issue, now on newsstands. Support queer media and subscribe — or download the issue through Apple News, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader.