Openly Gay Pilot Leavg Navy After Harassment | KPBS Public Media

Contents:

• THE GAY-FRIENDLIT AIRL THE SKI
• DO YOU EVER SEE GAY PILOTS?
• TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
• THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985
• HOW THE GAY AIRLE STEWARD BEME A STEREOTYPE
• GAY COPILOT THE COCKP
• MARK MORRO DISCS THE STATE OF LGBTQ+ INCLN AVIATN AND HIS LEGACY AS AN OPENLY GAY AIRLE CEO AND INDTRY CHAIRMAN
• OPENLY GAY PILOT LEAVG NAVY AFTER HARASSMENT
• OUT OF THE CLOSET AND ON TO THE NWAY: GAY PILOTS
• A GAY PILOT REFLECTS ON WHAT TRAVEL MEANS TO QUEER FOLKS

THE GAY-FRIENDLIT AIRL THE SKI

A very troublg vio has surfaced of an Amerin Airl pilot who abed his posn by foistg his Christian ttimony on a full plane, cludg graphic tails of sexual explos, his so-lled nversn om homosexualy, and even an exprsn of suicidal thoughts. For an explanatn of our Advertisg Policy, vis this recent years, many airl have woken up to the tth that our gay brothers and sisters are here, they're queer and they love to travel. As we wrap up Natnal LGBT Pri Month — and celebrate SCOTUS' momento lg for gay marriage —I'm takg an -pth look at which airl are showg their te rabow lors.

SAS is also a member of the Stockholm Gay and Lbian Network, and partners wh VisSwen the US, which promot Swen as a leadg LGBT urty of Leonard Zhovsky / ShutterstockDelta Air LNext on our list of fav is Delta: Not only has the airle been rporate a sponsor of and participant yearly Pri events ("NYC Pri, LA Pri, Utah Pri Ftival, Motor Cy Pri, Seattle PriFt, Tw Ci Pri, Atlanta Pri and Pri Toronto, among other ftivals"), but has proudly claimed s mment to LGBT employe as well:We are proud to have been signated one of the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) "Bt Plac To Work" for LGBT employe 2010 and 2011, and we ntue to earn near-perfect sr on HRC's Corporate Equaly Inx ever sce. The airle was certaly ahead of the pack 2007 wh s Pk Flight, which featured a drag queen stewarss, pk airplane food and a shirtls petn on s way om SFO to the Gay and Lbian Mardi Gras the plane got primped!

Photo urty of Peapple then 2010, an otherwise amg -flight safety vio featurg the All Blacks gby team had a weirdly homophobic moment (start at 2:55) that sparked enough plats to have the vio pulled. Among the are Athlete Ally, Boston Gay Men's Chos, Empire State Pri Agenda, Natnal Lbian & Gay Journalists Associatn, New York Cy Anti-Vlence Project, PFLAG NYC, Transgenr Legal Defense & Edutn Fund and pri celebratns at s foc ci Long Beach, CA and San Juan, Puerto Ri.

DO YOU EVER SEE GAY PILOTS?

Well I'm not a pilot (although I really wanted to be one when I was younger), but I am the gay grandson of a mercial pilot (Robson > Mohawk > Allegheny > USAIr) my pilot grandfather gay? I know a gay piedmont f/o he's not really flamboyant so you probably wouldn't know he was gay right away but, this guy may be one of the funnit mother*********s I have ever met. A well known jokter at the pany (pretty senr pta) walked down to get on the plane for his next flight, and two openly gay pilots were walkg off the plane after their flight.

The are the voic explag what has been like to be a gay man1 the Amerin ary over the prev seventy or so years, om World War II veterans their late eighti to young servicemen on active duty.

"I remember beg the Castro, " says John Forrett (army rerve, 1987–99), "and watchg the TV at a bar wh some iends, watchg Al Gore and Bill Clton swearg that if they beme the tag team for Ameri they were gog to get rid of the harassment of gays and lbians servg the ary. " Gay people were allowed the ary but only as long as they didn’t reveal their sexualy; to facilate this, all members of the ary were also prohibed om quirg about anyone’s possible orientatn.

TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY

Servicemen were advised that until then the policy would still apply, and that they uld potentially face s sanctns if they intify themselv publicly as gay. You’re a Mare, you don’t md gettg dirty, gog out to the field and not showerg for weeks at a, if you were gay, when you have to shower wh all the other guys you’d get all exced.

One Man’s Operatn Iraqi FreedomMany gay servicemen the morn era—cludg Eric Alva (Mar, 1991–2004)—have pleted long ary reers whout their sexualy ever beg revealed. And therefore few people realized that the first Amerin serly wound the vasn of Iraq durg the send Gulf war was a gay Alva signed up, before "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, " he had to lie on his paperwork. Lbians have suffered unr the same prohibns and prejudic and share many of the same experienc, as well as some that are distct, but this article ncentrat on the experience of gay men.

And when, 2006, the battl over "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" the ary and gay marriage the wir muny were simmerg, Alva’s boyiend at the time poted out to him that he did have some notoriety that might be of e. (The meetgs have been arranged through a private onle work lled OutServe, set up only last year, which allows gay and lbian servicepeople a safe and secure way of fdg and munitg wh one another. In the shadow of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, " whenever gay servicemen did face any kd of homophobic harassment, they were powerls to draw attentn to whout potentially triggerg the end of their ary reer.

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

The le self beme the very tool of their opprsn: "The ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, " says Joseph Rocha (navy, 2004–7), "punish homosexuals who ply, and protects bigots. Of a number of latg events—Rocha was also force-fed dog food and locked to a sh-filled dog kennel—the most abive and explicly homophobic was when he was orred by his manr to act a dog-trag scenar, repeated over and over so that every dog the un uld be n through . Lovg so much that each scenar was gayer and more disgtg—the troductn of fake semen, that I would have to wipe my face, or that I would have to make slurpg nois.

Anyone who gets off thkg that ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ unr the Bh admistratn anyone uld have gone and said, ’Hey, I’m beg antagonized unr the prciple that I might be gay’ and feel safe is absurd.

Life Seventy Years Ago as a Gay Serviceman: World War IIIt was only really around the Send World War that ary discrimatn beme dified and anized, and that the foc moved om simply sanctns agast homosexual acts to an attempt to intify and weed out homosexual tennci—though, as would be seen aga and aga, when fightg bodi were need badly enough, such ncerns would often evaporate. "JM: "I found out right after the war that if someone were discharged as homosexual, a notice of that fact was sent home to their lol draft board, so that their whole muny would e to know that they were gay.

HOW THE GAY AIRLE STEWARD BEME A STEREOTYPE

And this led directly to the formatn of gay ghettos the major ci, where people who uldn’t go home, bee their sexualy had been revealed by the army, had to move to Greenwich Village or the San Francis Castro. Manzella operated fully wh the vtigatn; when he was asked for evince that he wasn’t jt claimg to be gay orr to trigger a discharge, he even supplied photos, and footage of him and his boyiend passnately kissg on a road trip.

"While he was ployed, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a mpaigng group who had been givg him guidance, told him that 60 Mut wanted to do a piece about an openly gay man servg a bat zone, persuadg him that would give a voice to the "65, 000 men and women the ary" who weren’t able to live as openly as he was.

I was nfed until beme clear that, partly by chance and partly by a cha of personal remendatns over the years, this trailer park had bee some kd of gay-veteran hot spot: There are eight or ten others livg here, and more nearby.

GAY COPILOT THE COCKP

He says that he didn’t seek promotn past a certa pot bee would have required an vtigatn to get him clearance, and he was ncerned they would disver his subscriptns to gay magaz. One Man’s Vietnam"Back the ’50s Oregon, " rells Tom Norton (Army, 1968-71), "they were still puttg people jail for homosexual activy, and that certaly sends a strong msage to a young kid. "Norton wasn’t sexually active Vietnam—"I would numb myself and avoid anythg sexual"—and was only years later that he realized that some of the men his social circle there were gay.

"Air Force #2: "There’s one good iend that I thought about tellg, but always right when I thk, ’Okay, ’s ol to tell him, ’ he’ll say somethg that is kd of weird about gay people. The senator I worked for and the ngrsman I worked for knew I was gay—they were both nservative Republins—and they wrote a letter of remendatn to get me to the Mare Corps. ’ The CO looked at my iend and said, ’If somebody wants to get off my ship for beg gay, they have to e to me wh two Polaroids, both of them they have to be clearly suckg ck, and I want to be able to see their face.

One Man’s Secret Too ManyIt’s temptg to see gay servicemen’s entire ary existence through the prism of this sgle issue—the mpaigner, the opprsed, the stoic endurer—and as the totaly of who they are.

MARK MORRO DISCS THE STATE OF LGBTQ+ INCLN AVIATN AND HIS LEGACY AS AN OPENLY GAY AIRLE CEO AND INDTRY CHAIRMAN

In June 1998, Richard Merrt (Mar, 1985–98) appeared on the ver of The New York Tim Magaze, uniform but wh his face obscured, and si the story scribed what life was actually like for someone gay servg the ary.

" In her story he me across as, he says, "a very nservative type of gay, " but when he started lettg people know that s subject was him, he mt have known the clock was tickg.

OPENLY GAY PILOT LEAVG NAVY AFTER HARASSMENT

"I had taken some time off om my battaln and was stg at home jt flippg through the San Diego Gay and Lbian Tim, and there was an ad for ’male mols wanted. ’" The way he sometim jtified to himself what he did was that was a rponse to the ary’s homophobia, albe an extreme one: "I would feel very angry at the policy, and beme ’Well, fuck you, Mare Corps—I’m gog to do this and be as gay as I want to be for the world to see.

"Navy #3: "Nobody joed up to be ’the un gay guy, ’ but that’s who you’re gog to be, and I thk ’s cumbent on who are senr to basilly intify ourselv so that younger kids n look and say, ’Hey, is okay. Some likely post-repeal plitns: ristant pockets of homophobia the ary; the ntued right to voice certa homophobic sentiments unr, for stance, the eedom of relig exprsn; possible aternizatn charg if gay servicemen of different ranks ntue to associate wh each other as they often did the silent years; growg disquiet at the absence of partner rights equivalent to those for servicemen’s wiv. Champn has also participated Uned's Denver Pri events over the years and has spoken to other employee groups about beg gay the workplace, while Dulson is a longtime member of the Natnal Gay Pilots Associatn.

Some mentary on Pedro Almodóvar’s new edy I’m So Exced has noted that rerc gay stereotyp, particularly the characters of s sassy male flight attendants, who are all gay.

OUT OF THE CLOSET AND ON TO THE NWAY: GAY PILOTS

Some stewards were hired back after returng om World War II—often out of a sense of loyalty or patrtic duty—but bee they performed what was nsired “women’s work, ” they were thought to be effemate and were therefore spected of beg homosexual, acrdg to the bias of the time. This perceptn was further rerced when the killg of a gay male flight attendant a “lover’s lane” Miami brought the stereotype to the headl of sensatnal stori the Miami Daily News.

In the macho, homophobic years of the 1950s, this provoked a crackdown on the cy’s unrground gay muny, and stori like the were seen as evince that gay people were “perverts. Ever sce, men have generally prised about 15 percent of flight attendants, pendg on the airle, and a high percentage of the men returng to the ranks of the flight attendant rps the 1970s were gay. As Tiemeyer wr, “the aisl and galleys of airplan, as well as crew hotels and crash pads, served the same role that other gays and lbians found bars: a place where they uld meet others like themselv and even embrace their same-sex sir for the first time.

June is a by month for the anizatn bee is Pri Month, marked by paras and other celebratns held around the world to regnize the impact that lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr dividuals have had on history. He not that NGPA events give LGBTQ+ aviators a chance to relax and be themselv—and sometim that is difficult to do the aviatn workplace where they may enunter bigotry, homophobia, and transphobia.

A GAY PILOT REFLECTS ON WHAT TRAVEL MEANS TO QUEER FOLKS

It n manift the form of a worker g the word “gay” as a pejorative adjective or when someone misgenr-intifi someone by g the wrong pronouns or “adnam” them, the practice of g the former name of a transgenr dividual rather than the name they have chosen that better aligns wh their inty.

“For example, you might be on a four–day trip and have to spend hours and hours the ckp wh someone who is homophobic, and you have to judge the suatn and pick your battl. The NGPA has a homophobia and transphobia reportg le where people who have had negative teractns the workplace n share them, perhaps as a warng to others about what to expect at a particular bs.