Patricia Campos Doménech (born 12 March 1977) is a Spanish association football coach and former aviator of the

Spanish Navy The Spanish Navy, officially the Armada, is the Navy, maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Spanish Navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation ...

. She is the Navy's first woman fighter pilot. In 2013, she left the Armed Forces and publicly

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

as a

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

in an autobiographical book.

Biography

Patricia Campos Doménech was born in

Onda, Castellón Onda is a town in eastern Spain, in the province of Castelló, part of the autonomous community of Valencia Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, ...

on 12 March 1977. After studying audiovisual communication at the

University of Valencia The University of Valencia ( ), shortened to UV, is a public research university in Valencia, Spain. It is one of the oldest universities in Spain, and the oldest in the Valencian Community. It is regarded as one of Spain's leading academic i ...

, she took public exams for the

, through which she obtained one of two fighter pilot positions, finishing above about 200 other applicants. In this role, she served as a pilot for

VIPs VIPS or Vips may stand for: * Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, a college in Delhi, India * VIPS (software) image processing software * Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of current and former officials of the Uni ...

, from high-ranking military officers to the

Spanish royal family The Spanish royal family constitutes the Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon (), also known as the House of Bourbon-Anjou (). The royal family is headed by King Felipe VI and currently consists of the King; Queen Letizia; their children, Leono ...

. After eight years as an aviator in the Spanish Armed Forces, she left them in May 2013, after deciding that she did not want to continue hiding that she was a lesbian, and considering that her military life was not compatible with her sexual orientation. She chose to dedicate herself to her other interest,

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

. She had played this in her university days, and was captain of the women's team at

Naval Station Rota Naval Station Rota, also known as NAVSTA Rota (), is a Spanish naval base, that is jointly used by the Spanish Navy and the United States Navy. Located in Rota in the Province of Cádiz, NAVSTA Rota is the largest American military community in ...

, where she was assigned. Consequently, she decided to work as a professional football coach, becoming one of the first women to coach a team at a professional level: Carlsbad United F.C. in the United States. She periodically travels to Uganda, where she participates in several projects for the empowerment of children and women, coaching various amateur teams. As of 2017, she resides in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. There, she serves as coach of the Honolulu Bulls Soccer Club women's team, and also works mornings in the finance department of the

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

. She posted weekly entries about her personal experiences in the blog ''Fútbol sin Fronteras'' (Football Without Borders).

Activism for LGBT rights

While in the Navy she did not reveal that she was a lesbian until she "freed herself", as she explains in her book ''Tierra, mar y aire'', in which she demands rights for women and the

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

community. When her sexuality became publicly known, she affirms that despite not being in the military, she had to endure comments from her colleagues, their attitudes and criticisms, and that she was watched much more closely than they were, just for being a woman. It was a "very personal and very thought out" decision that she made, she adds, because she believed that it was a way to help other girls in her situation.

Awards

In 2016, Campos Doménech won the Miki Roqué Award for Peace in Sport for her work in Uganda, where she was a coach of children's teams of the association Soccer Without Borders. Also in 2016 she received the 2015 Seny Onder Award, an honor promoted by the Cultural and Mercantile Association, for her achievements in life and her actions for solidarity. She has also won the 2008 Women in Aviation Award from the Association of American Women Pilots in Italy, the 2010 Woman of the Year from the Onda Progressive Women's Association, the 2012 Isabel Ferrer Award from the

Generalitat Valenciana The Generalitat Valenciana is the generic name covering the different self-government institutions under which the Spanish autonomous community of Valencia is politically organized. It consists of seven institutions including the ''Corts Valen ...

, special mention for 2014 Sports Merit from the Castellón Sports Press Association, the Altruism Award from

Cadena SER La Cadena SER (the SER Network) is a Spanish radio network established in 1924, with a regular listenership of 4,139,000 reported in 2018. The acronym SER stands for Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión (Spanish Broadcasting Company). Cadena SE ...

's El Larguero Foundation, and was named a 2015 Woman of Achievement by the United Nations' Beijing Platform for Action.

Publications

* ''Tierra, mar y aire'', Roca Editorial,

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Campos, Patricia 1977 births 21st-century Spanish military personnel 21st-century Spanish women writers Lesbian military personnel Spanish LGBTQ military personnel Spanish LGBTQ rights activists Living people Naval aviators People from Onda Sportspeople from the Province of Castellón Spanish autobiographers Spanish expatriate football managers Spanish expatriate sportspeople in the United States Spanish naval personnel Spanish women's footballers University of Valencia alumni Spanish women's football managers Women autobiographers Women's association football players not categorized by position Spanish lesbian sportswomen 21st-century Spanish sportswomen Spanish lesbian writers Spanish LGBTQ footballers Spanish women aviators