According to Watkins, advocates for allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military never sought his advice, used his story or asked him to participate in their campaigns, leaving him with a feeling of betrayal. The individuals chosen to play such a role where white veterans like Keith Meinhold and Joseph Steffan. Watkins' experience as a drag artist and frank admissions of sexual encounters with other male servicemembers created a "public relations problem" in the words of Tom Stoddard, head of Lambda Legal. Referring to Margarethe Cammermeyer, who was embraced by movement leaders, Watkins wrote: "we'll go with a woman who led a lie for 56 years before we go with a black man who had to live the struggle nearly every day of his life."