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

Contents:

• GAYS THE MILARY/LGBT LAW
• IN SOUTH KOREA, GAY SOLDIERS CAN SERVE. BUT THEY MIGHT BE PROSECUTED.
• TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
• ARMY’S FIRST OPENLY GAY GENERAL RETIR AFTER SPIRG OTHERS
• GAYS THE MILARY
• GAYS THE MILARY: NEW FACTS CONQUER OLD TABOOS
• AM I GAY? HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY?
• HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM GAY? SIGNS YOU ARE GAY

GAYS THE MILARY/LGBT LAW

Half a after the repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell, most lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr service members still felt reluctant to be open about their sexualy wh their lleagu and cha of mand, acrdg to a study released late study, published by the journal Sexualy Rearch and Social Policy, found that 59 percent of rponnts did not feel fortable beg out at work, eher bee of reer repercsns or bee of the burn of beg a token rponsible for tg their peers.

IN SOUTH KOREA, GAY SOLDIERS CAN SERVE. BUT THEY MIGHT BE PROSECUTED.

”Dpe the orrs om above, many veterans publicly opposed the 2011 repeal of the ban on gay, lbian and bisexual service for troops who had grown up that environment, the policy’s mise did not flip a swch terms of fort level ― theirs or their lleagu.

“The stctor was reported to e the pejorative term ‘fags’ durg class, disclose other people’s sexual mory inty to his stunts whout their permissn, and munite that he believed sexual mori were more promiscuo than heterosexuals, ” acrdg the the study, based on a rponse om a gay soldier.

I am about to be put on a board for major and I do not want to not even have that opportuny to put myself where they n easily be like, ‘Get rid of this guy; if we have to cut 55 percent of the officers up for , he’s one of the easy on we n jt fd a reason to jt ver [ourselv], ' " said one rponnt, a gay Mare.

TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY

“I had a few iends there [ trag] that I got to know pretty well, but I knew a uple of them had some pretty strong relig backgrounds and I did not really feel like ttg the waters at that pot, ” one rponnt, a gay soldier, said.

"An employer who fir an dividual for beg homosexual or transgenr fir that person for tras or actns would not have qutned members of a different sex, ” Jtice Neil Gorsuch wrote the cisn.

“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, ” said former Print Barack Obama. “When was ascertaed that the basis of the maladjtment was homosexualy and this was reported to the dividual’s mandg officer, the subject ually received a ‘blue’ discharge, ” said Lt. Gay servicemen and women are protected unr the same laws as any other person and offered the same opportuni to excel and live wh a cent qualy of life whout fear of stroyg their reers.

ARMY’S FIRST OPENLY GAY GENERAL RETIR AFTER SPIRG OTHERS

“That is why I say to all Amerins, gay or straight, who want nothg more than to fend this untry uniform: Your untry needs you, your untry wants you, and we will be honored to wele you to the ranks of the ft ary the world has ever known, ” stated Obama.

Kim is one of an creasg number of gay or transgenr soldiers who have been persecuted unr Article 92-6 of the Army Crimal Act, which has been ed to out them and punish them for nsensual sex, Amnty Internatnal said a report released on Article 92-6, “anal sex and other cent acts” between ary personnel n be punished by up to two years prison, even if they take place off base, while the soldiers are off duty and by mutual nsent. All able-bodied South Korean men are required to serve for about two ary says do not bar gay and transgenr people om servg, and the Defense Mistry has expand trag on protectg the rights of sexual mori. But nservative Christian groups have also lated monstratns agast homosexualy major ci, often llg gay soldiers a threat to ary groups helped to scuttle attempts Parliament to pass an anti-discrimatn law, urged on South Korea by the Uned Natns, that would give sexual mori the same protectns that other mory groups have.

Amnty Internatnal’s report scrib vivid tail how antigay attus have translated to physil and sexual abe wh the former soldier told the rights group he had been forced to have oral and anal sex wh another gay soldier, as a superr tnted, “Don’t you want to have sex wh a womanlike man? “The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer.

GAYS THE MILARY

Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN. “There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said. Of urse, other drks e the word “gay,” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space.

“Given that large numbers of LGBTQ+ veterans who were affected by prev homophobic and transphobic polici have not applied for a discharge upgra due to the perceptn that the procs uld be onero, we are hopeful that this policy statement enurag more of them to ntact VA to terme their eligibily for re and servic, ” she said. 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. 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.

GAYS THE MILARY: NEW FACTS CONQUER OLD TABOOS

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.

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 . 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.

AM I GAY? HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY?

"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.

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. 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.

HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM GAY? SIGNS YOU ARE GAY

’ 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.