Tell: An Intimate History of Gay Men the Milary | GQ

Contents:

• TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
• THE REVOLUTNARY WAR HERO WHO WAS OPENLY GAY
• "COMG OUT UNR FIRE": THE STORY OF GAY AND LBIAN SERVICEMEMBERS
• ARMY’S FIRST OPENLY GAY GENERAL RETIR AFTER SPIRG OTHERS
• I THOUGHT I COULD SERVE AS AN OPENLY GAY MAN THE ARMY. THEN CAME THE DEATH THREATS.
• GAY, BISEXUAL TROOPS MORE LIKELY TO SUFFER SEXUAL ASSLTS, STUDY SUGGTS
• GAYS THE MILARY
• GAY REPARATNS ARE PAST DUE
• BARACK OBAMA SIGNS GAY ARY LAW
• GAY RIGHTS
• GAYS THE MILARY: NEW FACTS CONQUER OLD TABOOS

TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY

”A earlier, the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” allowed gays and lbians to serve openly after centuri of hidg, persecutn and dishonorable, we salute some of the lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer service members who paved the way for a more clive force. C., and the Stben Para, held each September down New York’s Fifth KamenyFrank Kameny Kennedy / Tribune News Service via Getty ImagOne of the Foundg Fathers of the morn gay rights movement, Frank Kameny enlisted the Army 1943, servg Europe throughout World War II.

After the war, he earned a doctorate at Harvard Universy and tght astronomy at Geetown Universy, In 1957, Kameny had jt started workg for the Army Map Service, wh hop of beg an astront, when he was termated after vtigators unvered evince he was a, then 32, appealed the firg, argug that flatly labelg gay people a secury risk was “no ls od than discrimatn based upon relig or racial grounds. The jtic refed to hear the appeal, but marked the first time the high urt even nsired a civil rights se based on sexual orientatn — and galvanized Kameny to beg a lifelong activist for equaly for gays and years later, 1965, Kameny, Kay Tob and Barbara Gtgs started the Annual Remrs, the first anized picket protts for gay rights Ameri, held at Philalphia’s Inpennce Hall. That ugly dismissal cut Milk loose to pursue other terts — he tght high school on Long Island, worked at an surance firm and Wall Street brokerage New York Cy and ultimately opened a mera shop on Castro Street San Francis, where his activist reer began was one of the first openly gay elected officials the U.

THE REVOLUTNARY WAR HERO WHO WAS OPENLY GAY

"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. 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 . 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.

"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. ’" 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.

"COMG OUT UNR FIRE": THE STORY OF GAY AND LBIAN SERVICEMEMBERS

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. 1988: The rults of a jot report nducted by the DoD and the Defense Personnel Secury Rearch Edutn Center rerce the fdgs of a 1957 report claimg that gay and lbian dividuals enlisted the armed forc pose no signifint risk to secury (which had prevly been the ratnale for barrg gay dividuals om enlistg the ary). 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.

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. Rand said about 43% of all ary sexual asslts over the prr year were mted agast troops who are gay, lbian and bisexual, or who otherwise did not dite they are heterosexual, although they make up about 12% of the active-duty force, acrdg to a 2018 Defense Department survey. By analyzg the supposed trimental effects of homosexual tegratn to the Uned Stat ary on un hn and bat effectivens, as well as the burn tegratn would put on the budget of the central ernment, we will hopefully be able to appreciate the views of those who support the DADT policy.

ARMY’S FIRST OPENLY GAY GENERAL RETIR AFTER SPIRG OTHERS

READ MORE: The Supreme Court Rulgs That Have Shaped Gay Rights Ameri‘Scientific’ Attempts to Intify HomosexualsIn their effort to screen out queer nscripts, ary officials ran to a problem: They didn’t have a nclive way of intifyg them, beyond a set of subjectively terpreted “signs” such as “feme bodily characteristics” and “effemacy drs and manner, ” acrdg to Allan Bébé, thor of Comg Out Unr Fire: Gay Men and Women Durg World War II. Ameri’s alli, cludg the Uned Kgdom, Canada, Israel, and Atralia, allow openly gay, lbian, and bisexual persons to serve the ary, and this has no adverse effect on ary reads or disciple (Belk, 2001, 2003; Belk & Bateman, 2003; Belk & Levt, 2001; Belk & McNichol, 2001).

Consistent wh a long-standg body of social psychology rearch based on Allport’s (1954) ntact hypothis, scientists have repeatedly found evince for rced prejudice levels toward gay, lbian or bisexual people among heterosexuals who are acquated wh openly gay, lbian or bisexual members of society (e.

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

The thors of a prehensive recent meta-analysis of the last six s of rearch this area monstrate that the rrelatn of ntact between heterosexuals and gay and lbian persons wh lower levels of sexual prejudice is signifintly higher than prejudice rctn lked to ntact wh any other target group, e. The percentage of ary service members strongly opposed to allowg gay and lbian persons serve the ary has cled nsirably over the last , wh only 5% of personnel the ary a 2006 poll statg that they are “very unfortable” teractg wh gay and lbian persons the ary, ntrasted wh 73% who were somewhat or very fortable this regard (Zogby et al., 2006).

GAY, BISEXUAL TROOPS MORE LIKELY TO SUFFER SEXUAL ASSLTS, STUDY SUGGTS

Bra lifted the ban only after the European Court of Human Rights rejected an argument that was need to protect morale and fightg power amongst s troops, sayg the policy had vlated human to that, many gay people had sought to hi their sexualy or risk beg discharged om the armed pennt review was lnched last year to exame the ttimoni of LGBT veterans who served between 1967 and 2000 to regnise the impact of the polici. Cis to lift the ban on gays the ary, mt extend s provisn of welfare servic to the fai (partners) of gay personnel, velop a supportive gay-lbian-bisexual-transgenr muny and put place tn and support iativ that will ensure they are weled and valued as members of the ary.

By the time the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is rcd, same-sex marriage will be legal at least four stat, the State Department will have acmodated employe same-sex relatnships wh assignments to socially appropriate natns, gays will have long been wele secury and enforcement agenci like the C. In still other untri, gay reparatns have centered on a pardon to anyone nvicted unr laws that crimalized same-sex attractn, as the Uned Kgdom, which 2017 issued a posthumo pardon to those nvicted of “gross cency, ” cludg Alan Turg, the mathematician creded wh shorteng the end of World War II; or even fancial pensatn for wag or pensns lost due to havg spent time prison or a mental stutn bee of a homosexual offense, as Spa sce 2009 and Germany sce 2016.

Surely, the absence of gay reparatns—or even a discsn of them— the Uned Stat is not out of a rosy history ee of systemic discrimatn toward the LGBTQ muny, although a valid argument n be ma that this history is not particularly well known, save, perhaps, for “don’t ask, don’t tell. Des before “don’t ask, don’t tell, ” om the 1920s through at least the 1960s, there was the policy of “entrapment, ” which volved unrver police officers sendg flirtat signals to other men they prumed to be homosexual the hop of ensnarlg them to illic activy. Acrdg to the historian Eric Cervi’s book The Deviant’s War, War, which is about gay rights pneer Frank Kameny, the 15 years after World War II, “homosexual arrts—cludg those for sodomy, dancg, kissg, or holdg hands—occurred at the rate of one every ten mut, ” for a grand total of 1 ln arrts.

GAYS THE MILARY

Supreme Court lg that upheld the state of Geia’s sodomy laws, the urt termed that the Constutn did not protect the rights of gays, lbians, and bisexuals to engage private, nsensual sexual relatns, bee, the jtic nclud, homosexual sex has no nnectn to fay, marriage, abortn, or procreatn.

The famo and bloody history of societal attacks on the Amerin LGBTQ muny clus sger and spokperson Ana Bryant’s 1977 Save Our Children csa, which picted gay men as pedophil; Evangelist Jerry Falwell’s “claratn of war” on homosexualy, a rhetoril tactic employed durg the 1980s to raise funds for Falwell’s Moral Majory anizatn; and the 2016 attack on Pulse, a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida. Some crics of gay reparatns such as the nservative polil mentator Michael Medved have mataed that gay people are not servg of reparatns bee unlike Black Amerins, gay people are not victims of multigeneratnal damage, meang that whatever ills homophobia may have ed the past, the ills are not the same as those left behd by slavery, as they do not rry over om generatn to generatn.

They have also leveraged historil narrativ of homosexual reprsn to fluence public opn and policy toward the LGBTQ muny, such as the opprsn of gays and lbians unr Nazi Germany or unr the homophobic laws of the Francis Fran regime Spa, and shamed public officials for failg to stand up for the human rights of LGBTQ people. Asi om rtorg digny to the victims of state-sponsored polici of anti-gay discrimatn and vlence, gay reparatns hold the promise of puttg an end to the history of opprsn of LGBTQ people while remdg future generatns of the sacrific and stggl that me before them.

GAY REPARATNS ARE PAST DUE

Media ptn, US Print Barack Obama: ''I believe this is the right thg to do for our ary''US Print Barack Obama has signed a landmark law allowg gay people servg the ary to be open about their Obama said the law meant that tens of thoands of Amerins would no longer be asked to live a had mpaigned to change the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" law, overturned by Congrs last than 13, 000 service members have been dismissed unr the policy, enacted 1993 as a promise. Opponents argue that the change will damage troop morale at a time of earlier this month, a Pentagon report said that allowg openly gay troops would have ltle impact on the hn of US forc fightg Iraq and outgog Senate and Hoe of Reprentativ approved the new law last week, wh morate Republins jog the Democratic majory.

BARACK OBAMA SIGNS GAY ARY LAW

"No longer will our untry be nied the service of thoands of patrtic Amerins who were forced to leave the ary, regardls of their skills, no matter their bravery or their zeal, no matter their years of exemplary performance bee they happen to be gay. It is unclear if gay and lbian veterans will receive spoal benefs if they do not ri a state that regniz same-sex marriage; nservativ are attemptg to make easier for service members to harass gay and lbian troops by tablishg broad exemptns for the relig views of service members; transgenr Amerins are still prohibed om servg any pacy; and some veterans who were kicked out for beg gay or lbian are still fightg for a discharge upgra, which affects their abily to ga health re verage and fd employment. Though the ary’s ban on nsensual sodomy is arguably unenforceable sce the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, many view the law as a relic of the ary’s history of discrimatn agast gay and lbian service members, as appears the same sentence wh btialy the UCMJ.

Army service World War I, Gerber was spired to create his anizatn by the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee, a “homosexual emancipatn” group ’s small group published a few issu of s newsletter “Friendship and Freedom, ” the untry’s first gay-tert newsletter. Ernment signated Gerber’s Chigo hoe a Natnal Historic Pk TriangleCorbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, gay rights movement stagnated for the next few s, though LGBT dividuals around the world did e to the spotlight a few example, English poet and thor Radclyffe Hall stirred up ntroversy 1928 when she published her lbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonels.

Addnally, 1948, his book Sexual Behavr the Human Male, Aled Ksey proposed that male sexual orientatn li on a ntuum between exclively homosexual to exclively Homophile Years In 1950, Harry Hay found the Mattache Foundatn, one of the natn’s first gay rights group.

GAY RIGHTS

”Though started off small, the foundatn, which sought to improve the liv of gay men through discsn groups and related activi, expand after foundg member Dale Jenngs was arrted 1952 for solicatn and then later set ee due to a adlocked the end of the year, Jenngs formed another anizatn lled One, Inc., which weled women and published ONE, the untry’s first pro-gay magaze. Post Office, which 1954 clared the magaze “obscene” and refed to liver Mattache Society Mattache Foundatn members rtctured the anizatn to form the Mattache Society, which had lol chapters other parts of the untry and 1955 began publishg the untry’s send gay publitn, The Mattache Review. That same year, four lbian upl San Francis found an anizatn lled the Dghters of Bilis, which soon began publishg a newsletter lled The Ladr, the first lbian publitn of any early years of the movement also faced some notable setbacks: the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed homosexualy as a form of mental disorr followg year, Print Dwight D.

”In fear of beg shut down by thori, bartenrs would ny drks to patrons spected of beg gay or kick them out altogether; others would serve them drks but force them to s facg away om other ctomers to prevent them om 1966, members of the Mattache Society New York Cy staged a “sip-”—a twist on the “s-” protts of the 1960s— which they vised taverns, clared themselv gay, and waed to be turned away so they uld sue. They were nied service at the Greenwich Village tavern Juli, rultg much publicy and the quick reversal of the anti-gay liquor Stonewall Inn A few years later, 1969, a now-famo event talyzed the gay rights movement: The Stonewall clanste gay club Stonewall Inn was an stutn Greenwich Village bee was large, cheap, allowed dancg and weled drag queens and homels the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn.

GAYS THE MILARY: NEW FACTS CONQUER OLD TABOOS

1 / 12: NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagChristopher Street Liberatn Day Shortly after the Stonewall uprisg, members of the Mattache Society spl off to form the Gay Liberatn Front, a radil group that lnched public monstratns, protts and nontatns wh polil officials. Addnally, several openly LGBTQ dividuals secured public office posns: Kathy Kozachenko won a seat to the Ann Harbor, Michigan, Cy Council 1974, beg the first out Amerin to be elected to public Milk, who mpaigned on a pro-gay rights platform, beme the San Francis cy supervisor 1978, beg the first openly gay man elected to a polil office asked Gilbert Baker, an artist and gay rights activist, to create an emblem that reprents the movement and would be seen as a symbol of pri. In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn published a report about five prevly healthy homosexual men beg fected wh a rare type of 1984, rearchers had intified the e of AIDS—the human immunoficiency vis, or HIV—and the Food and Dg Admistratn licensed the first mercial blood tt for HIV 1985.