Twenty-five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks changed the world, YOUR EX remembers the LGBTQ+ people who were among those killed, the queer heroes whose courage became part of the story, and the surviving partners whose grief exposed how far equality still had to go.
Twenty-five years ago, an ordinary Tuesday morning became one of the defining moments of modern history.
On 11 September 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial aircraft in the United States. Two were deliberately flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York, another struck the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., while United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.
In total, 2,977 victims were killed.
Behind that number were thousands of individual lives: parents and partners, children and friends, firefighters and office workers, flight crews and travellers.
And members of the LGBTQ+ community.
LGBTQ+ historians and media have identified at least 27 victims as lesbian, gay, bisexual or otherwise queer, although there is no authoritative official total. Sexual orientation and gender identity were not systematically recorded among victims in 2001, some people were not publicly out, and the language and visibility surrounding bisexual and transgender identities differed considerably from today.
The true number may never be known.
Their LGBTQ+ identities were not what killed them.
But those identities were part of their lives — and some of their stories would expose both extraordinary courage and an inequality that became painfully visible in the aftermath.
Mark Bingham: A Gay Hero Of Flight 93
Perhaps the best-known LGBTQ+ story from September 11 belongs to Mark Bingham.
The 31-year-old public relations executive was an accomplished rugby player and openly gay man who had played for the University of California, Berkeley, and later joined the San Francisco Fog, a gay-inclusive rugby club.
Bingham was travelling aboard United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco.
After passengers learned through phone calls that other hijacked aircraft had already struck the World Trade Center, several decided to fight back.
Bingham was among those involved in the counterattack.
The passengers and crew attempted to retake the aircraft from the hijackers. Flight 93 ultimately crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, before reaching the Washington target investigators believe the hijackers intended to strike.
Bingham’s legacy has become particularly powerful within LGBTQ+ sport.
The Bingham Cup, now one of the world’s largest inclusive rugby tournaments, was established in his honour and continues to bring together LGBTQ+ and inclusive rugby clubs from around the globe.
His life also challenged one of the stereotypes that followed gay men particularly strongly in that era: the idea that homosexuality was somehow incompatible with masculinity, toughness or competitive sport.
Bingham had wrestled with that assumption himself.
By the time of his death, he had found a place where being a gay man and being a rugby player no longer felt like two identities that needed to be kept apart.
Twenty-five years later, his name remains synonymous with both inclusive rugby and the courage shown aboard Flight 93.
Mychal Judge: ‘Victim 0001’
Another queer figure became part of one of the defining images of Ground Zero.
Father Mychal Judge, a 68-year-old Franciscan friar and chaplain to the New York City Fire Department, went to the World Trade Center with firefighters after the attacks began.
Judge had spent years supporting firefighters, people experiencing homelessness, people living with HIV and AIDS, and members of New York’s gay community.
Friends and colleagues later spoke publicly about Judge being gay, although his sexuality was not something he discussed publicly during his lifetime.
He died inside the North Tower during the rescue response when debris came crashing through the building following the collapse of the South Tower.
The image of firefighters carrying Judge’s body from the devastation became one of the most recognisable photographs of September 11.
He was subsequently assigned the designation Victim 0001, meaning he was the first officially recorded and certified victim of the attacks — not necessarily the first person chronologically killed.
It remains a remarkable detail in the history of 9/11.
A closeted gay Catholic priest who had spent much of his life caring for firefighters, people with AIDS and those pushed to society’s margins became the first officially recorded victim of one of the defining tragedies of the 21st century.
David Charlebois: Visibility In The Cockpit
David Charlebois, 39, was First Officer aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when it was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon.
He was also openly gay.
Charlebois had become increasingly visible within aviation, including through his involvement with the National Gay Pilots Association.
American Airlines has since highlighted his role in helping change the company’s culture, including his advocacy around recognition and workplace equality for gay employees.
He marched publicly in uniform and supported efforts to secure domestic-partner benefits at a time when same-sex couples lacked most of the federal legal protections they have today.
Charlebois shared his life with his longtime partner, Tom Hay.
His story is a reminder that queer visibility inside workplaces we now take for granted was far less common at the beginning of the century.
For Charlebois, being visible was itself a form of advocacy.
Two Dads And Their Little Boy
Some of the most heartbreaking queer stories of September 11 were not about public figures or activism.
They were simply about families.
Daniel Brandhorst and Ronald Gamboa lived in Los Angeles with their three-year-old adopted son, David Reed Gamboa Brandhorst.
The couple had met 13 years earlier and decided to build a family together.
David called one of his fathers “Daddy” and the other “Papa”.
In September 2001, the family had been visiting relatives on the East Coast. On 11 September, they boarded United Airlines Flight 175 in Boston to return home to Los Angeles.
Their aircraft was hijacked and deliberately flown into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
All three were killed.
David was one of the youngest victims of September 11.
Today, the National September 11 Memorial remembers Daniel, Ronald and David together, their names arranged near one another in recognition of their relationship.
Their story is also a reminder of something very simple.
Same-sex couples were raising children and creating families long before the law fully recognised those families.
They made homes. Planned holidays. Went to swimming lessons. Visited grandparents. Worried about work and bills. Tried to get a toddler onto an aeroplane.
Queer family life did not begin with marriage equality.
It was already there.
Carol Flyzik, Pamela Boyce And Sheila Hein
Many other LGBTQ+ victims left partners behind.
Carol Flyzik, 40, was travelling aboard American Airlines Flight 11 when it became the first aircraft to strike the World Trade Center.
She had shared her life for around 13 years with Nancy Walsh and had become part of Walsh’s family, including helping raise her children.
Pamela Boyce, 43, was at work on the 92nd floor of the North Tower.
She had been with her partner, Catherine Anello, for more than six years.
Shortly before September 11, the couple had coincidentally talked about death. Anello later recalled Boyce telling her that she did not want people to mourn her life endlessly.
She wanted them to celebrate it.
At the Pentagon, Sheila Hein, 51, was killed when Flight 77 struck the building.
She had shared a home and a life with Peggy Neff for nearly two decades.
Together they had renovated their house, created a garden and made legal arrangements intended to protect one another as much as the law of the time allowed.
Then September 11 showed just how limited those protections could be.
When The Person You Loved Wasn’t Legally Your Spouse
For some surviving LGBTQ+ partners, the attacks brought another layer of trauma.
They had lost the person they loved and then discovered that, legally, their relationship did not necessarily carry the same weight as a heterosexual marriage.
In 2001, same-sex marriage was not legally recognised anywhere in the United States.
That suddenly mattered enormously.
As government compensation, charitable assistance and other benefits were established, fundamental questions became painfully practical.
Who counted as a spouse?
Who was next of kin?
Who could receive compensation?
Who could make decisions?
Who had to prove that their relationship was real?
LGBTQ+ organisations reported surviving partners encountering difficulties heterosexual spouses did not face and began advocating for them as relief programmes were developed.
New York ultimately extended certain state benefits to surviving same-sex partners, while community organisations created dedicated funds for lesbian and gay families affected by the attacks.
Peggy Neff’s case became one of the most significant.
Under Virginia law, her relationship with Sheila Hein was not recognised like a marriage.
The federal September 11 Victim Compensation Fund nevertheless awarded Neff more than US$500,000 for the loss of her partner.
At the time, LGBTQ+ advocates described the decision as an important acknowledgement from the federal government that a committed same-sex relationship had genuine economic and familial consequences.
The money could never compensate for losing Hein.
But the decision recognised something Neff should never have been forced to establish in the first place.
Sheila was her family.
25 Years Later
For millions of people, September 11 is no longer a memory.
It is history.
Around 100 million Americans were born after the attacks, according to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, which has made educating generations without a personal memory of the day an increasing focus of its work.
That makes preserving individual stories more important.
Including queer ones.
LGBTQ+ people were not standing outside the events of September 11.
We were in the World Trade Center.
We were aboard the aircraft.
We were inside the Pentagon.
We were among the office workers, pilots, parents, athletes and first responders.
Some ran from danger.
Others ran towards it.
And those left behind experienced the same grief as every other bereaved partner or family member — even when the law was not yet prepared to acknowledge that equality.
There is no need to turn LGBTQ+ victims into symbols at the expense of who they actually were.
Mark Bingham was more than a gay rugby player who fought back aboard Flight 93.
Mychal Judge was more than a gay priest.
David Charlebois was more than a gay pilot.
Daniel Brandhorst and Ronald Gamboa were more than gay dads.
Sheila Hein, Carol Flyzik and Pamela Boyce were more than lesbian victims of terrorism.
Their identities matter.
But so does everything else.
Their careers. Their relationships. Their ambitions. Their families. Their friendships. Their houses and gardens. Their rugby teams. Their holidays. Their Saturday nights and Monday mornings.
All the ordinary pieces of a life that become immeasurably important once someone is gone.
On this 25th anniversary, the world will again see the towers burning. We will see the smoke over Manhattan and the scar in the Pentagon. We will remember the field in Pennsylvania.
And thousands of names will be spoken aloud.
Among those names are members of our community.
The number we currently know is at least 27.
There may have been more.
Twenty-five years later, they should not exist in a footnote to the history of September 11.
They are part of that history.
Never forget means never forgetting them, too.
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