I'm a Brish Royal Navy officer — and I'm gay. I feel like I've had to work twice as hard as my straight peers.

The ary ban, which was lifted 2000, meant that gay people were dishonourably discharged and sometim, stripped of medals. * gay royal navy *

Dpe the Royal Navy's homophobic history, the other officers accepted I still felt the need to ph myself harr than most to prove gay men aren't 's note: Insir has verified the inty of the wrer, but they asked to rema anonymo to reta their my 25th birthday, I ma a life-changg cisn: I joed the Royal Navy as a warfare officer.

Not long after, I ma another bold cisn: I me out as gay to my fellow that, one thought repeated my head: "Don't let them thk gays are weak.

As motivatg as the thought was, I later realized I was puttg myself a box that no one else out as gay the Royal Navy went surprisgly smoothlyWhen I joed the Navy three years ago, I already had a gree social scienc and secured my dream job.

GAY ROYAL NAVY OFFICER OUTED AND MA TO FEEL ‘SUB-HUMAN’ WS £47,000 PAYOUT

The Royal Navy and Royal Mar have been named as one of the UK’s top employers for their mment to lbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgenr staff. * gay royal navy *

Dpe 68% of the public opposg the ban 1999, a survey of ary personnel the mid-'90s found that 95% of rponnts said they would prefer not to serve alongsi homosexuals, the BBC ary has bee much more welg sce then. Origally, was feared that the arrival of gays to the ary would create an " vers them" mdset, disptg the uny required for operatnal effectivens.

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

A retired Royal Navy litenant manr has said that as a gay woman the Brish Armed Forc and she was forced to live a "double life". * gay royal navy *

Rictor Norton, at his webse Homosexualy Eighteenth-Century England, has llected an imprsive number of primary sourc, though few reference sailors. Somethg that be clear Norton's work is that there was ltle or no legal distctn at the time between those who engaged a sgle same-sex act, those who were exclively homosexual, and anyone who fell between.

GAY WOMAN SPEAKS OUT ABOUT HER ‘DOUBLE LIFE’ SERVG THE ROYAL NAVY

Royal Navy begs actively enuragg gays to enlist and pledg to make life easier when they do, five years after Bra lifted s ban on gays ary; navy says has asked Stonewall, group that lobbi for gay rights, to help velop better strategi for recg and retag gay men and lbians, possibly by advertisg gay mgaz and newspapers; new effort ntu pattern of changg official attus navy datg to 1999, when European urt led that Bra's ban on gays ary vlated European human-rights laws; gays Brish tary are subject to same l of sexual nduct as heterosexuals: no touchg, no kissg, no flntg of sexualy; spe change policy, relatively few gay men and lbians already ary have e out (M) * gay royal navy *

In his A Queer History of the Uned Stat, Michael Bronski pots out that the very term 'homosexual' wasn't vented until 1869 'to help nstct a narrative around a person fed by his or her same-sex sexual sir and actns. We nnot say that sailors who engaged homosexual acts intified as homosexual, nor n we say that others fed them as such before they were nvicted.

Brish society believed that a lack of accs to women gave rise to homosexualy, and there was perhaps no place the eighteenth century so exclively male as the navy. ' Today we would regnize the facts as irrelevant to the act self, but eighteenth century law, a sgle homosexual act was equated wh beg exclively homosexual. Rodger argued his book The Woon World: An Anatomy of the Geian Navy that acts of homosexualy were not as mon the mid-eighteenth century Royal Navy as many assume:.

Consirg that the navy oped up thoands of young men for months on end whout accs to women, is surprisg how few homosexual cints rulted prosecutn. Wh the threat of ath hangg over their heads, the unlikelihood of fdg a man wh the same sexual clatns, and the very real chance of tectn, even those men wh homosexual leangs faced many obstacl to actually engagg the act. Early the eighteenth century, the famo Puranil preacher Cotton Mather ma the nnectn between an terveng God and homosexual acts among sailors:.

BRISH SOLDIERS SACKED FOR BEG GAY N GET THEIR MEDALS BACK

For what n be seen as a victim-ls crime (at least s of nsensual homosexual acts) officers would unrstandably be reluctant to prosecute seafarers. Rodger argu that homosexualy and homosexual acts were almost entirely absent the navy and treated wh difference, while Gilbert believed to be unmon but unniably prent and treated wh dranian btaly. He believed that fear of beg pated as a homosexual stutn motivated officers to be overzealo punishments when they were forced to nont them urt.

NEW COURSE BY ROYAL NAVY: A CAMPAIGN TO REC GAYS

[20] Stark agre wh Gilbert: 'Englishmen, unlike other European men, did not approve of any show of affectn between men, ' bee 'a male homosexual was a threat to the very ncept of malens. Gilbert and Stark, on the other hand, thought that officers feared a perceptn by the general public of the Royal Navy as an herently homosexual stutn.

NAVY CHIEFS ORRED SECRET PURGE OF GAY SAILORS

'[23] Hawks' anecdote supports Gilbert's argument that homosexualy was wily feared the Navy, but is the only reference I've e across yet that even impli homosexualy throughout the urse of the Sailors' Memoirs Project.

Both Gilbert and Rodger agree that homosexual acts were treated as a crime that rried an unually harsh punishment, and for this reason was sometim overlooked.

I'm a Brish Royal Navy officer — and I'm gay. I feel like I've had to work twice as hard as my straight peers.

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GAY ROYAL NAVY OFFICER AWARD £45,000 AFTER BEG FORCED TO E OUT ACMODATN ROW

GAY ROYAL NAVY OFFICER AWARD MORE THAN £45,000 AFTER BEG OUTED: ‘IT MA ME FEEL SUB-HUMAN’