eBar.com – by Matthew S. Bajko
With her appointment to the city of Aurora’s Commissions on Veterans Affairs and Cultural Affairs in January, Pamela Bennett became the first-ever transgender person to be appointed to such posts in the history of the state of Colorado.
An Air Force veteran, Bennett oversees veterans affairs in Aurora at the Buckley Air Force Base. The city also is the former home of Lowry AFB and Fitzsimmons Army Hospital. Aurora is a suburb of Denver, and with a population of 310,000, the state’s third largest city.
In her first interview since being sworn in, Bennett told the Bay Area Reporter that the veterans commission’s mission is to help vets enter into the Veterans Administration’s healthcare system. A VA patient herself, she said her experience has been positive.
“The VA hospital is very LGBT accepting,” said Bennett. “We have a good number of transgendered vets. The VA here had a support group for trans people but it went away for lack of interest.”