Michele Kaemmerer, first transgender LAFD captain, dies at 80

When Michele Kaemmerer showed up at firehouses in the 1990s, she sometimes encountered firefighters who didn’t want to work with her and would ask to go home sick.

Los Angeles fire officials supported Kaemmerer, the city’s first transgender fire captain, by denying the requests.

If the slights hurt her, she didn’t let it show.

“She really let things roll off her back pretty well. Some of the stuff was really hurtful, but she always had a good attitude,” said Janis Walworth, Kaemmerer’s widow. “She never took that out on anybody else. She was never bitter or angry.”

Kaemmerer, an early leader for transgender and women’s rights at a department not known for its warm welcome to women and minorities, died May 21 at age 80 of heart disease at her home in Bellingham, Wash. She is survived by Walworth and two children.

Michele Kaemmerer wears a shirt to show pride in her trans and lesbian identity in an undated photo.

(Courtesy of Janis Walworth)

A Buddhist, a Democrat, a feminist and a lesbian transgender woman, Kaemmerer busted stereotypes of what a firefighter was. She joined the LAFD in 1969 — long before she transitioned in 1991 — and became a captain 10 years later.

“Being in a fire, inside of a building on fire, at a brush fire … it’s adrenaline-producing and it’s great,” Kaemmerer said in a 1999 episode of the PBS show “In The Life,” which documented issues facing the LGBTQ+ community. The episode featured Kaemmerer when she was captain of Engine 63 in Marina del Rey.

“The men and women here feel very stressed out having a gay and lesbian captain,” Savitri Carlson, a paramedic at the firehouse, said in the episode. “You have to realize, this is not just a job. We live, sleep, shower, eat together, change together.”

But Kaemmerer brushed off the snubs.

“They’re forced to live with a lesbian, yes,” she said, laughing as she prepared a meal at the firehouse. “And it doesn’t rub off.”

Those close to her said that Kaemmerer, who retired in 2003, was able to deal with the scrutiny and snide remarks because she was an optimist who saw the best in people.

“She really didn’t dwell on that stuff,” said Brenda Berkman, one of the first women in the New York City Fire Department, who met Kaemmerer in the 1990s through their work for Women in the Fire Service, now known as Women in Fire, which supports female firefighters across the world.

The suspicion sometimes came from other women. When Kaemmerer joined Women in the Fire Service, some members didn’t want her to go with them on a days-long bike trip.

Some argued that Kaemmerer was “not a real woman,” wondering what bathroom she would use and where she would sleep.

“She made clear she would have her own tent,” Berkman recalled. “I said to my group, ‘We can’t be discriminating against Michele — not after all we’ve fought for to be recognized and treated equally in the fire service. She has to be allowed to come.’”

Kaemmerer joined the trip.

Michele Kaemmerer fights a brush fire in an undated photo.

(Courtesy of Janis Walworth)

Born in 1945, Kaemmerer knew from an early age that she identified as a woman but hid it out of fear of being beaten or shamed. She cross-dressed secretly and followed a traditional life path, marrying her high school sweetheart (whom she later divorced), joining the Navy and having two children.

“I was very proud of her [when she came out],” said Kaemmerer’s daughter, who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons. “It takes incredible courage to do what she did, especially in a particularly macho, male-driven career.”

When she came out as transgender, Kaemmerer was captain of a small team at the LAFD, with three men working under her.

“It was very difficult for them,” she said in the PBS interview.

Kaemmerer focused on her work. During the 1992 L.A. riots, her fire truck was shot at as she responded to fires, Berkman said.

In the PBS interview, Kaemmerer said that some firefighters who knew her before she transitioned still refused to work with her.

Some women who shared a locker room with her worried that she might make a sexual advance. Most firefighters sleep in the same room, but Kaemmerer sometimes didn’t, so others would feel comfortable.

“Sometimes I will get my bedding and I will put it on the floor in the workout room or the weight room and sleep in there,” she said in the PBS interview.

As she was talking to PBS about her experience as a transgender woman in the fire department, the bell sounded.

“That’s an alarm coming in,” she said, standing up and walking out of the interview.