Gay woman speaks out about her 'double life' servg the Royal Navy | PkNews

Contents:

• 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’
• 'I HID BEG GAY THE ROYAL NAVY FOR 20 YEARS, THEN MY FIRST LOVE DIED OF AIDS 2 DAYS BEFORE I LEFT'BEFORE THE BAN 2000, BEG LGBTQ+ THE ARY WAS CRIMAL AND FORMER LITENANT COMMANR PATRICK LYSTER-TODD HAD TO HI HIS SEXUALY FOR S WHICH ALMOST LED HIM TO TAKE HIS OWN LIFEGETWTLONDONBOOKMARKSHARECOMMENTSNEWSBYMATT SPIVEYCONTENT EDOR11:05, 1 DEC 2022UPDATED11:35, 1 DEC 2022BOOKMARKPATRICK EXPLAS HOW LED A KD OF DOUBLE LIFE WHEN HE WAS YOUNGERSIGN UP FOR NEWS AND FEATUR OM OUR DIVERSE MUNI MORE NEWSLETTERS SUBSCRIBEINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.MORE NEWSLETTERSWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!WE HAVE MORE NEWSLETTERSSHOW ME SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE&TIM;GROUP 28 SIGN UP FOR NEWS AND FEATUR OM OUR DIVERSE MUNI INVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.SIGN UPNO THANKS, CLOSEWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE &TIM;GROUP 28THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!
• 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.
• GAY ROYAL NAVY OFFICER OUTED AND MA TO FEEL ‘SUB-HUMAN’ WS £47,000 PAYOUT
• RISHI SUNAK APOLOGIS TO LGBT VETERANS FOR PAST ARMED FORC GAY BAN
• GAY WOMAN SPEAKS OUT ABOUT HER ‘DOUBLE LIFE’ SERVG THE ROYAL NAVY
• BRISH SOLDIERS SACKED FOR BEG GAY N GET THEIR MEDALS BACK
• NEW COURSE BY ROYAL NAVY: A CAMPAIGN TO REC GAYS
• NAVY CHIEFS ORRED SECRET PURGE OF GAY SAILORS

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

A gay Royal Navy officer has been award £45, 000 after he was forced to e out followg a dispute over army anonymo serviceman told an employment tribunal he was discrimated agast by Navy guil on the provisn of hog for claimed that as a rult of the dispute he had to disclose his sexualy to succsfully argued that the Royal Navy breached the Equaly Act by cuttg the typ of acmodatn offered sgle men to jt one - while givg married upl the optn of two to choose tribunal found that the policy would have “a disproportnate effect on the group of Service Personnel who intify as gay” as members of the LGBT+ muny are “ls likely to be married or a civil partnership than heterosexual service personnel”. Royal Navy guil on the provisn of hog for officers were found by the tribunal to have “a disproportnate effect on the group of service personnel who intify as gay” as members of the LGBTQ+ muny are “ls likely to be married or a civil partnership than heterosexual service personnel, ” The Telegraph reported. He sent an email flaggg the hog issu to his superrs which was then circulated to other officers, revealg that he was gay agast his wish.

In 2019, retired litenant manr the Royal Navy, Mandy McBa MBE, opened up out about her experience as a gay woman the Brish armed forc, where she said she had to live a “double life”.

READ MORE: 'I was given a crimal nvictn jt for beg gay and ed my life - a pardon is not enough' 'I thought was a phase but didn't end for me'.

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

He said: "I realised that if I wanted to have a reer the navy as well as beg gay that I was gog to have to work out how to keep two nflictg requirements apart. It took Patrick about two hours of circlg the venue and checkg he had not been followed before he had the nfince to walk through the door of the gay bar.

'I HID BEG GAY THE ROYAL NAVY FOR 20 YEARS, THEN MY FIRST LOVE DIED OF AIDS 2 DAYS BEFORE I LEFT'BEFORE THE BAN 2000, BEG LGBTQ+ THE ARY WAS CRIMAL AND FORMER LITENANT COMMANR PATRICK LYSTER-TODD HAD TO HI HIS SEXUALY FOR S WHICH ALMOST LED HIM TO TAKE HIS OWN LIFEGETWTLONDONBOOKMARKSHARECOMMENTSNEWSBYMATT SPIVEYCONTENT EDOR11:05, 1 DEC 2022UPDATED11:35, 1 DEC 2022BOOKMARKPATRICK EXPLAS HOW LED A KD OF DOUBLE LIFE WHEN HE WAS YOUNGERSIGN UP FOR NEWS AND FEATUR OM OUR DIVERSE MUNI MORE NEWSLETTERS SUBSCRIBEINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.MORE NEWSLETTERSWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!WE HAVE MORE NEWSLETTERSSHOW ME SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE&TIM;GROUP 28 SIGN UP FOR NEWS AND FEATUR OM OUR DIVERSE MUNI INVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.SIGN UPNO THANKS, CLOSEWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE &TIM;GROUP 28THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!

Patrick said: "I knew that if I was found out I would be chucked out but I didn't realise then that was also a crimal offence the ary to be gay. After leavg the ary Patrick set up Gay Men's Health Portsmouth, volunteered at the rintial un of London's first centre for people wh HIV/AIDs lled Lighthoe, where he provid palliative to the termally ill young men his re. He worked rtrants, gay bars and even TV, all the while volunteerg and mpaigng for LGBTQ+ rights, Patrick chaired Rank Outsirs who worked wh Stonewall throughout the 1990s to get the ban of LGBTQ+ ary personnel the Armed Forc lifted.

Followg the turbulent years Patrick's life, Craig Jon, a Litenant Commanr of the Navy who me out as gay on the day the ban was lifted, me up wh the ia of wrg an anthology of stori of the LGBTQ+ ary personnel who had been left behd. Craig Jon, a Litenant Commanr of the Navy who me out as gay on the day the ban was lifted, me up wh the ia of wrg an anthology of stori of the LGBTQ+ ary personnel who had been left behd. READ NEXT: Gay uple have 'dream' weddg London church after beg 'rejected' om 31 others first of s kd service 'I'm a gay man om Rwanda - arrivg Europe was like leavg a livg hell, you n't send LGBT+ asylum seekers over there' Homels woman told to live wh parents who 'threatened her wh gay nversn therapy'.

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.

an aerial view of royal navy officers walkgThe wrer is gay and the Royal O'Connor - PA Imag / Getty ImagI joed the Royal Navy three years ago and me out as gay to my fellow officers. 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

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.

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.

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.

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

' 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:.

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.

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

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. [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.

BRISH SOLDIERS SACKED FOR BEG GAY N GET THEIR MEDALS BACK

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. '[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.

This mak the task of exhumg the prevalence of, and attus toward homosexualy exceedgly difficult and sometim, the words of Gilbert, 'impossible. Image source, Emma RileyImage ptn, Rad operator Emma Riley was discharged om the Navy for beg a lbian the 1990sRishi Sunak has apologised for the historil treatment of LGBT veterans who were sacked or forced out of the ary for beg PM lled the ban an "appallg failure" of the Brish was illegal to be gay the Brish ary until 2000 - wh thoands of veterans thought to be affected. Addrsg MPs, the prime mister said: "Many endured the most horrific sexual abe and vlence, homophobic bullyg and harassment all while bravely servg this untry.

NEW COURSE BY ROYAL NAVY: A CAMPAIGN TO REC GAYS

"The LGBT Veterans Inpennt Review, led by Bra's first openly gay judge Lord Etherton, began last year and heard about the experienc of 1, 145 veterans between 1967 to 2000. Acrdg to the report, the Mistry of Defence said at the time that jtifitn for the policy clud "matenance of operatnal effectivens and efficiency" - but the report said there had been an "prehensible policy of homophobic bigotry" the armed forc. It heard shockg acunts of homophobia, bullyg, blackmail, sexual asslts, "disgraceful" medil examatns, and nversn mak 49 remendatns to the ernment cludg:Affected veterans to be given an "appropriate fancial reward" pped at £50m overallThe rtoratn of medals that had to be hand back on dismissal or dischargeThe clarifitn of pensn rights The prentatn of a special veterans' badgeThe ernment said would rpond full after summer of the veterans affected watched the PM's public of them, Emma Riley, 51, was a Royal Navy rad operator for three years before she was arrted and discharged for beg a lbian after tellg a lleague her sexualy the early told BBC News she weled the report, and hoped would be put to place "swiftly.

Carol Man, who was dismissed after tellg her boss she was gay 1978, kept her sexualy secret for another 30 years and said she had been "robbed" of her life. "Olympian Dame Kelly Holm, who served the army and me out as gay last year, lled the publitn of the report a "historic moment", while Cathere Dixon, a former army officer who is now vice chair at Stonewall, said was "an important step towards jtice" for those whose ary reers were "ed" bee of their sexualy. Many still have a crimal rerd to this also tails how some veterans faced a plete loss of e, while others were emed eligible to claim their pensn bee of their report more than 20 years after four servicemen and women, who were sacked for beg gay, won a se the European Court of Human Rights and overturned the armed forc chary Royal Brish Legn lled on the ernment to accept the report's remendatns chary's director general Charl Byrne weled both the report and Mr Sunak's "landmark apology", sayg many people who had dited their liv to the untry were "forced or felt prsured to leave the armed forc, and this mistreatment stroyed or shortened their reer".

NAVY CHIEFS ORRED SECRET PURGE OF GAY SAILORS

It was towards the end of his terview for a place at the prtig Brannia Royal Naval College that Craig Jon was asked if he had ever had ntact wh homosexuals. Back 1987, there was a ban on gay, bisexual and trans people jog Bra’s armed, then 20, was tellg the naval officers what they wanted to hear. Over the past 21 years, sce the ban on gay personnel was repealed, he has mpaigned vociferoly for gay rights the armed forc - damagg his own advancement the week, the home secretary, Pri Patel, announced that all nvictns for nsensual homosexual activy will be wiped om the rerds.