Washgton's Hundred-Year War on Gays | Washgton Monthly

Contents:

• I THOUGHT I COULD SERVE AS AN OPENLY GAY MAN THE ARMY. THEN CAME THE DEATH THREATS.
• WASHGTON’S HUNDRED-YEAR WAR ON GAYS
• RISHI SUNAK APOLOGIS TO LGBT VETERANS FOR PAST ARMED FORC GAY BAN
• ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
• WAR OF THE WORLDS: ROBERT CARLYLE EXPLAS HIS "POTENTIALLY GAY" ROLE BBC'S ADAPTATN

I THOUGHT I COULD SERVE AS AN OPENLY GAY MAN THE ARMY. THEN CAME THE DEATH THREATS.

In rponse, and apparently to monstrate his petency his assigned posn, the nonmissned officer had taken upon himself to approach the person he nsired cled toward mtg a siar offense the future: me, the only openly gay soldier my un.

Together we approached our un’s learship, where she sisted that the ments had stemmed om the reprentative’s own homophobic feelgs and remend that he be reprimand and removed om his posn as the un’s sexual harassment watchdog. But by then was hard to ignore the anxiety I felt durg required social activi — “mandatory fun, ” as ’s lled the ary — or the tensn om my fellow moment I cid to bee a soldier and the moment I chose to live openly as a gay man occurred so closely time that ’s hard to remember which me first.

It was still four months before the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell, ” a double-edged policy prohibg askg any service member about his or her sexualy while enforcg a ban on openly gay service members. A uple were more elaborate: tailed scriptns of what might happen to me if I was ught alone, and proclamatns about the wrongns of gays the ary.

WASHGTON’S HUNDRED-YEAR WAR ON GAYS

There are moments when feels wrong to claim my stat as a veteran; as if beg gay ma me ls of a soldier and somehow validated my service. Every memory evok an emotn: rage that I had to serve wh a nstant sense of fear of my fellow soldiers; paralyzg sadns for those who endured ab worse than I n know; and, the worst, guilt over the service members — gay or straight or transgenr — who died while servg the ary while my body is still whole. While DDLJ a n-of-the-l romantic drama tale to actually narrate a bizarre, formls, perhaps even unsolvable mystery story, War exam the them of homosexual sire the dividual and societal ntext, g an actn/spy story as a cematic ver.

Certaly, beg the latter would also give new meang to flashbacks that show Khalid beg beaten by his schoolmat for his father’s betrayal, meang that those scen stead perhaps are a metaphoril exprsn of social stigmatizatn and vlence at the hands of one’s fellow peers for perceived homosexualy, sadly not a phenomenon unmon amongst adolcents. It is likely that this is an allegoril reprentatn of the stereotype of a gay man enterg to a heterosexual relatnship wh an unwtg woman, primarily to nceal his sir and embrace a semblance of normalcy society’s ey, although the film jtifi Kabir’s distert her as a sign of his sense of duty to the natn. In a particularly stirrg scene that volv Khalid meetg wh Kabir as he celebrat Christmas wh Naa’s dghter, the joys of fatherhood and the possibily of a homosexual uple startg a fay together are explored.

(Corrects to say Ukrae Pri based Kyiv, not Lviv, paragraph 20)* LGBTQ+ Ukraians heed print’s ll to jo ary* Campaigners hope war uld ero lgerg homophobia* Far-right supporters also signg up to fight RsiaBy Enrique AnarteMarch 18 (Thomson Rters Foundatn) - Before Rsia vad Ukrae three weeks ago, Oleg ed to get up early every day to walk his dogs along the wi, French-spired boulevards of the pal, had been planng a cyclg trip to Ossa on the untry’s Black Sea three days after Rsian tanks rolled across the borr, Oleg, a 22-year-old bisexual man and former beer sommelier, began a very different life - signg up to serve the Ukraian armed forc along wh his father. ”Ukrae legalised gay sex 1991, but nservative elements the maly Orthodox Christian natn often speak out agast rights for LGBTQ+ people, and members of the far-right regularly target groups and events lked to the 's 2015 Pri para was dispted by vlent here now LGBTQ+ people are signg up to fight, activists hope war uld help ero lgerg prejudice.

RISHI SUNAK APOLOGIS TO LGBT VETERANS FOR PAST ARMED FORC GAY BAN

”Homophobic groups and dividuals have also joed the Ukraian army, said Lenny Emson, director of Kyiv Pri, an LGBTQ+ rights group based the pal. “One of the stctors, when he noticed my nails at first, told me: ‘I hope you are jt an athetic person’, ” Dmytro said, meang artistic rather than gay.

’”Six same-sex soldier upl have got engaged sce the war began - some hopg gay marriage will soon be legalised, acrdg to the Unn of the LGBT, WIN THE WARBut some doubt whether signs of growg acceptance will outlast the nflict. “When the war is over, I thk we will have to fight for human rights aga, ” Vladislav, a 25-year-old gay soldier, told the Thomson Rters Foundatn om Kyiv. A Rsian occupatn might make thgs worse, rights mpaigners, where a law agast “gay propaganda” has been ed to ban Pri march and ta activists, ranks 46th Europe for LGBTQ+ legal protectns, acrdg to the ILGA-Europe to the Rsian asslt, foreign news anisatns quoted unnamed U.

Bryant was the lear of the opposn group Save Our Children, whose members phed for the repeal of a gay-rights ordance Miami-Da County.

ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI

LGBTQ historian Lillian Farman pots to the formatn of the Gay Liberatn Front shortly after the uprisg, and pri paras a year later to memorate the protts.

"As the gay movement succeed and as var ci began to pass gay-rights ordanc ually to rporate the term 'sexual and affectnal preference' existg nondiscrimatn ordanc, " Farman said, "I thk that woke the relig right up to beg to ph back.

WAR OF THE WORLDS: ROBERT CARLYLE EXPLAS HIS "POTENTIALLY GAY" ROLE BBC'S ADAPTATN

At the peak of Bryant's homophobic activism that year, an assistant to then-Print Jimmy Carter, Midge Costanza, ma the cisn to ve gay-rights lears to the Whe Hoe.