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

Contents:

• "COMG OUT UNR FIRE": THE STORY OF GAY AND LBIAN SERVICEMEMBERS
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
• IN WWII, TWO GAY SOLDIERS’ FORBIDN ROMANCE LIV ON IN THEIR LOVE LETTERS
• HOW WWI SPARKED THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE GAY DURG WWII

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

Liebman and more than 9, 000 Amerin servicemembers, however, eventually were given a Sectn 8 "blue discharge" for beg homosexual. The 1994 documentary Comg Out Unr Fire giv voice to the experienc of thoands of gay and lbian servicemembers who joed the ary durg World War II, a story that is largely ignored by historians and mms across the untry. At the time, homosexualy was classified as a mental illns by the medil muny; mental illns was one ndn that disqualified young people om service.

Gay and lbian recs were forced to answer qutns vaguely, or lie about their sexualy, orr to be allowed to serve; otherwise, they would n the risk of beg sent home and brand as “sex perverts.

Instead of chargg dividuals wh sodomy, a urt-martialed offense, the ary began intifyg spected homosexuals as psychopaths.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

The new iendships gave gay and lbian GIs refuge om the hostily that surround them and allowed for a distct subculture to velop wh the ary.

Servicemembers on every waront enjoyed drag show entertament; an entire gay lexin was veloped om the wrgs of Dorothy Parker; and eventually an unrground queer newspaper emerged. The irony that the ary selected two homosexuals to reprent the ial image of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was not lost on Abry. The feral discrimatory actns drove LGBTQ people further to the shadows of society and embolned law enforcement and policians, who beme more vlent toward gay and lbian cizens.

Gay and lbian veterans of World War II beme some of the first to fight ary discrimatn and blue discharg the years followg the war. My only hope is that anizatns around the untry m to pturg the voic of gay, lbian, and transgenr veterans and that we fd a place our history to honor their service as well.

TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY

We sat down wh Sir John Dermot Turg, Alan Turg’s nephew and thor of a new book on Bletchley Park, to discs his uncle’s role pivotal role puter science and his persecutn for beg gay the 1950s. “Unsirable” behavr—specifilly, an accatn of “attemptg to perpetrate an act of Homosexualy, ” as he explaed a letter to the Natnal Associatn for the Advancement of Colored People, om whom he was seekg legal help.

” A the top rner of the notice explaed the reason for the discharge—“HS, ” for stance, meant the person was nsired a homosexual. ” Wh WWII’s massive human mobilizatn, the ary shifted om s practice of jailg soldiers acced of homosexualy (which required time-nsumg, expensive urt-martials) to simply emg them psychologilly unf.

IN WWII, TWO GAY SOLDIERS’ FORBIDN ROMANCE LIV ON IN THEIR LOVE LETTERS

Acrdg to Jon, the NAACP worked wh Black service members acced of homosexualy, like Lemuel Brown, to appeal to the Discharge Review Board for a changed stat—ually wh ltle succs. 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.

HOW WWI SPARKED THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Durg World War II, out of some 18 ln potential enliste, the ary only intified between 4, 000 and 5, 000 homosexuals, a severe unrunt, timat Bébé.

In 1944, acrdg to Bébé, an Army doctor tted tongue prsors on patients who were beg treated as “sexual psychopaths”—one of the terms for homosexuals. The doctor proclaimed that a tongue prsor tt uld screen out gay people not jt om ary service, but om other feral agenci as doctors began explorg whether they uld diagnose homosexualy—through Rorschach tts or by measurg sexualy through hormone tts. (One Army psychiatrist theorized that homosexual men would show higher levels of trogen than ttosterone—and lbians the reverse.

) None of the theori panned part bee of the difficulti of scientifilly measurg queerns, the War Department January 1944 began to allow discharg on the basis of “latent homosexualy. ” That gave officials license to eject someone for homosexualy unr the blue discharge system simply bee they seemed gay—even if the ary lacked MORE: How LGBT Civil Servants Beme Public Enemy No. 1 the 1950sBrief Reform, Followed by the ‘Lavenr Sre’Bettmann Archive/Getty Imag<em>Gay rights picketers prottg outsi of the Whe Hoe, 1965.

WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE GAY DURG WWII

Between late 1945 through 1947, soldiers removed om the armed forc for homosexualy received discharg unr honorable ndns, makg them eligible for G. But the policy wasn’t retroactive, meang that thoands who had already received a blue discharge for homosexualy were still nied benefs.

In this creasgly hostile climate, soldiers who had received blue discharg for homosexualy had their hop for reform dashed. In total, between World War II and 2011, when the ary’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law was repealed, at least 100, 000 more soldiers were removed for homosexualy. Among them was Harvey Milk, a Korean War veteran who went on to bee the first openly gay polil official the Uned MORE: For Centuri, Blackmail Was a Tool Used to Intimidate Gay Men.

It is unclear how many of the men publicly or privately intified as gay or were part of gay muni and works that had been tablished Germany before the Nazi rise to power. However, the Nazi mpaign agast homosexualy and the regime’s zealo enforcement of Paragraph 175 ma life Nazi Germany dangero for gay men.