American Veterans for Equal Rights
American LGBT veteran service organization
American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) is the oldest Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Veterans Service Organization (VSO) in the United States. Founded on 17 May 1990, AVER is a non-profit VSO that supports and advocates for the rights of LGBT military veterans, active duty service members, and their families.
History
AVER was founded by several LGBT veterans including SSgt. (Army Reserve-Rtd.) Miriam Ben-Shalom; Navy Ensign, Jim Woodward, president of the San Diego Veterans Association; Chuck Schoen; bisexual US Army veteran Cliff Arnesen of the New England Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Veterans, Boston, Massachusetts; in 1990 as the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Veterans of America, the oldest organization of LGBT veterans.
Miriam Ben-Shalom, a lesbian Army Reserve enlisted soldier who was discharged in 1975 by the military after it was revealed by a higher officer that she was lesbian, fought through the judicial system to retain her post. While initially successful, a higher federal Court of Appeals ultimately reversed the decision.
To help defend others in similar situations, Ben-Shalom worked with other LGBT veterans to establish the GLBVA in 1990. She served as National President until shortly after the 1993 March on Washington, when her resignation was demanded by unanimous action of the Board of Directors due to consequences relating to several events during the days of the March program. The organization attended the March showing a list of over thirty chapters and affiliated organizations. Not long after the March, that number had dropped to fewer than six active local chapters or affiliates after large numbers of members expressed extreme dissatisfaction with events that took place during the March.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “American Veterans for Equal Rights” as american LGBT veteran service organization. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as american LGBT veteran service organization. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4745339. VIAF identifies the subject as 169176728. The Library of Congress control number is n2011016411. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1990, 1975 and 1993.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “American Veterans for Equal Rights”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow American Veterans for Equal Rights primary sources, American Veterans for Equal Rights archive and American research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “American Veterans for Equal Rights” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.