Jurors n be rejected for beg gay. The Equaly Act uld change that.

<p>The thors of this report timate the proportn of all sexually asslted ary service members who intify as lbian, gay, or bisexual or who do not dite they intify as heterosexual.</p> * gay duty *

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. It was still four months before the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell, ” a double-edged policy prohibg askg any service member about his or her sexualy while enforcg a ban on openly gay service members.

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. The Hoe of Reprentativ is poised this week to vote on the Equaly Act, a landmark assemblage of LGBTQ anti-discrimatn measur that’s gotten strong support om Print Joe passed, the law would explicly provi protectns to LGBTQ people across key areas, cludg employment, hog, tn, public acmodatns and ferally fund one provisn the bill uld also have a big impact on how the gay muny teracts wh the Amerin legal system.

“Strik exercised on the basis of sexual orientatn ntue this plorable tradn of treatg gays and lbians as unservg of participatn our natn’s most cherished r and ruals. 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.

TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY

* gay duty *

" 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. Servicemen were advised that until then the policy would still apply, and that they uld potentially face s sanctns if they intify themselv publicly as gay.

You’re a Mare, you don’t md gettg dirty, gog out to the field and not showerg for weeks at a, if you were gay, when you have to shower wh all the other guys you’d get all exced. One Man’s Operatn Iraqi FreedomMany gay servicemen the morn era—cludg Eric Alva (Mar, 1991–2004)—have pleted long ary reers whout their sexualy ever beg revealed.

UGANDA ANTI-HOMOSEXUALY BILL: LIFE PRISON FOR SAYG YOU'RE GAY

Personal Profil for Gay Marie Duty om Statville, NC and Gay C Duty om Alexandria, VA, addrs, phone numbers, emails * gay duty *

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. Lbians have suffered unr the same prohibns and prejudic and share many of the same experienc, as well as some that are distct, but this article ncentrat on the experience of gay men.

GAY DUTY

Rand said about 43% of all ary sexual asslts over the prr year were mted agast troops who are gay, lbian and bisexual. * gay duty *

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. The le self beme the very tool of their opprsn: "The ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, " says Joseph Rocha (navy, 2004–7), "punish homosexuals who ply, and protects bigots.

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

Overall, nonheterosexuals men are jt as likely to have served the ary as straight men, although gay men are unrreprented whereas men who have sex wh men but don't intify as gay or bisexual are overreprented among those who have served. * gay duty *

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 .

Lovg so much that each scenar was gayer and more disgtg—the troductn of fake semen, that I would have to wipe my face, or that I would have to make slurpg nois. 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.

MILARY SERVICE EXPERIENC AND REASONS FOR SERVICE SEPARATN AMONG LBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL DIVIDUALS A LARGE ARY HORT

The well-beg of lbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) dividuals is a topic of creasg ncern wh the ary where signifint stutnal barriers, targeted aggrsn, and differential anizatnal polici such as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” have historilly ntributed to experienc of excln and discrimatn. However, limed rearch has examed specific ary and post-separatn experienc among LGB service members and veterans. The goal of this study was to exame differenc ary and service separatn experienc by sexual orientatn among a large reprentative sample of Uned Stat service members and veterans. Survey data om the 2016 Millennium Cohort Study follow-up qutnnaire were ed to asss sexual orientatn and multiple out of tert: ary experienc (morale, feelgs about the ary, missed workdays) and service separatn experienc (reasons for separatn, post-separatn employment). The associatns between sexual orientatn (LGB vers heterosexual) and each of the out were evaluated a seri of adjted logistic regrsn mols, stratified by sex when teractns were observed. Of the 99,599 participants, 3.4% intified as LGB. In adjted mols, LGB service members had signifintly higher odds than heterosexual service members of feelg: unimprsed by the qualy of un learship, unsupported by the ary, and negative about the ary overall. Bisexual women were more likely than heterosexual women to feel ls un mararie; both gay and bisexual men felt ls mararie than heterosexual men. LGB veterans were more likely than heterosexual peers of the same sex to separate om service due to unplanned admistrative reasons. Compared to heterosexual women, lbian and bisexual women were more likely to separate om service due to dissatisfactn wh promotns/pay and disabily/medil reasons, while bisexual women specifilly separated due to dissatisfactn wh learship and patibily wh the ary. Gay and bisexual men also reported separatg due to patibily wh the ary, but only bisexual men were more likely to report separatg due to disabily/medil reasons pared to heterosexual men. Ls posive ary- and separatn-specific experienc disproportnately affected LGB service members this study. Promotg cln and creasg support for LGB service members may improve satisfactn wh ary service and retentn. * gay duty *

"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.

IN SUPPORT GROUPS FOR GAY MILARY MEMBERS, PLENTY OF ASKG AND TELLG

Two years after the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” support groups for gay men and lbians are beg formed at ary bas around the untry. * gay duty *

"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. He says that he didn’t seek promotn past a certa pot bee would have required an vtigatn to get him clearance, and he was ncerned they would disver his subscriptns to gay magaz.

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.

"Air Force #2: "There’s one good iend that I thought about tellg, but always right when I thk, ’Okay, ’s ol to tell him, ’ he’ll say somethg that is kd of weird about gay people.

HISTORY OF GAYS THE MILARY--PICTURES

The senator I worked for and the ngrsman I worked for knew I was gay—they were both nservative Republins—and they wrote a letter of remendatn to get me to the Mare Corps. ’ 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. One Man’s Secret Too ManyIt’s temptg to see gay servicemen’s entire ary existence through the prism of this sgle issue—the mpaigner, the opprsed, the stoic endurer—and as the totaly of who they are.

In June 1998, Richard Merrt (Mar, 1985–98) appeared on the ver of The New York Tim Magaze, uniform but wh his face obscured, and si the story scribed what life was actually like for someone gay servg the ary.

" In her story he me across as, he says, "a very nservative type of gay, " but when he started lettg people know that s subject was him, he mt have known the clock was tickg. ’" 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.

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