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"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service of non-heterosexual people. Instituted during the Clinton administration, the policy was issued under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 on December 21, 1993, and was in effect from February 28, 1994, until September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service. This relaxation of legal restrictions on service by gays and lesbians in the armed forces was mandated by Public Law 103–160, which was signed November 30, 1993. The policy prohibited people who "demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts" from serving in the armed forces of the United States, because their presence "would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability".
The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is an organization affiliated with the Republican Party which advocates for equal rights for LGBT+ Americans, by educating the LGBT+ community and Republicans about each other.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) personnel are able to serve in the armed forces of some countries around the world: the vast majority of industrialized, Western countries including some South American countries such as Argentina and Chile in addition to South Africa, and Israel. The rights concerning intersex people are more vague.
Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America is an American 2009 political book by Nathaniel Frank that argues that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy banning openly gay servicemen and women from the United States armed forces weakened military and national security. According to Frank, 12,000 people — 800 of whom had previously been deemed "mission critical" by the U.S. government — were discharged from the military between 1993 and 2008, based on policies that Frank describes as "rooted in denial, and deception, and repression."
Knights Out is an organization of West Point alumni, staff and faculty who support the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to serve openly in the U.S. military and who wish to educate young officers about the issues and contributions of LGBT troops. The group's name is in reference to the Army Black Knights, West Point's athletic mascot.
The United States military formerly excluded gay men, bisexuals, and lesbians from service. In 1993, the United States Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, a law instituting the policy commonly referred to as "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT), which allowed gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to serve as long as they did not reveal their sexual orientation. Although there were isolated instances in which service personnel were met with limited success through lawsuits, efforts to end the ban on openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people serving either legislatively or through the courts initially proved unsuccessful.
Log Cabin Republicans v. United States, 658 F.3d 1162 was a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of 10 U.S.C. § 654, commonly known as don't ask, don't tell (DADT), which, prior to its repeal, excluded homosexuals from openly serving in the United States military. The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), an organization composed of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Republicans, brought the suit on behalf of LCR members who serve or served in the military and were subject to DADT.
Servicemembers United (SU) was an LGBT-interest organization dedicated to the repeal of the United States armed forces' gay-exclusionary policy, commonly known as "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT). The organization, formerly known as "Call to Duty", formed in 2005 by veterans.
OutServe-SLDN was a network of LGBT military personnel, formed as a result of the merger between OutServe and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. OutServe-SLDN was one of the largest LGBT employee resource groups in the world. OutServe was founded by a 2009 graduate of the US Air Force Academy, Josh Seefried and Ty Walrod. There were over 7,000 members and 80 chapters worldwide.
Josh Seefried is an LGBT rights activist, a former captain in the United States Air Force, and a former co-chairman on the Board of Directors of OutServe-SLDN, an association of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of the U.S. Military. A graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2009, Josh was formerly known by his pseudonym JD Smith during his campaign to end the discrimination against lesbians, gays and bisexuals serving openly in the United States military.
Dan Choi is an American former infantry officer in the United States Army who served in combat in the Iraq War during 2006–2007. He became an LGBT rights activist following his coming out on The Rachel Maddow Show in March 2009 and publicly challenged America's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, which forbade lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) service members from serving openly.
American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) is the oldest Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Veterans Service Organization (VSO) in the United States. Founded in 1990, AVER is a non-profit VSO that supports and advocates for the rights of LGBT military veterans, active duty service members, and their families.
Elaine Donnelly is an American conservative activist and anti-feminist principally concerned with preserving the traditional culture of the U.S. military. She is a contributing editor at Human Events magazine. She is the founder of the Center for Military Readiness which opposes the service of gay and transgender people and favors limiting the positions open to women in the military. It has been described as a right-wing organisation by the Southern Poverty Law Center and other sources.
OutServe Magazine was a bi-monthly digital and print publication of OutServe, a non-profit, non-government organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender service members in the United States Armed Forces. It was co-founded by Air Force Staff Sgt. Jonathan Mills and Capt. Eddy Sweeney, and first published in March 2011, while OutServe was still operating clandestinely prior to the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that banned open gays from service. The Magazine garnered over a quarter of a million views for its most popular issues. The publication was distributed free of charge on military bases, and was available to the public for downloading and redistribution through its website and mobile apps. It published 13 issues over 2 years, employing more than 30 volunteer staff, and was the first gay rights magazine to be approved for distribution on military bases.
The Palm Center is a think tank founded in 1998 at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that produces scholarship designed to improve the quality of public dialogue about critical and controversial public policy issues. It commissions and disseminates research in the areas of gender, sexuality, and the military that has been published in leading social scientific journals and cited in the press. The Palm Center is a resource for university-affiliated as well as independent scholars, students, journalists, opinion leaders, and members of the public.
Shane Ortega is a retired Army Staff Sergeant and Marine Corps veteran. Ortega was stationed at Wheeler Airfield in Oahu, Hawaii in the 3-25th Combat Aviation Division of the Army's 25th Infantry Division. He was a member of the Gay Men's Chorus of Honolulu and competed at the professional level of bodybuilding, placing fourth in fall 2015.
Not all armed forces have policies explicitly permitting LGBT personnel. Generally speaking, Western European militaries show a greater tendency toward inclusion of LGBT individuals. As of January 2021, 21 countries allow transgender military personnel to serve openly: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Cuba and Thailand reportedly allowed transgender service in a limited capacity. In 1974, the Netherlands was the first country to allow transgender military personnel. The United States has allowed transgender personnel to serve in the military under varying conditions since President Joe Biden signed an executive order that allowed them to do so.
In the past most lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) personnel had major restrictions placed on them in terms of service in the United States military. As of 2010 sexual orientation and gender identity in the United States military varies greatly as the United States Armed Forces have become increasingly openly diverse in the regards of LGBTQ people and acceptance towards them.
The regulations regarding the service of intersex people in the United States Armed Forces are vague and inconsistent due to the broad nature of humans with intersex conditions. The United States Armed Forces as a whole does not officially ban intersex people from service but does exclude many based on the form of their status. Policies regarding all intersex people are not addressed formally although depending on the type of sex variation some intersex people are allowed to serve. The United States military and their requirements for service makes it so they are frequently in a unique predicament when it comes to intersex bodies. With their position of needing to discern between male and female bodies, they are exposed to a broad variety of people, such as those who are intersex whose bodies may not match either classification and are more difficult to make decisions on. This ambiguity leads to confusion regarding military medical, behavioral, and legal laws.
Bibliography of works on the United States military and LGBT+ topics is a list of non-fiction literary works on the subject of the United States Armed Forces and LGBT+ subjects. LGBT+ includes any types of people which may be considered "Queer"; in other words, homosexual people, bisexual people, transgender people, intersex people, androgynous people, cross-dressers, questioning people and others.
References
- ↑ "Palm Center". palmcenter.org.
- ↑ "Grand Marshals". SF Pride. Archived from the original on 2015-07-19. Retrieved 2015-07-18.
- ↑ Aaron Belkin CV
- ↑ Kaplan, Roberta (2015). Then Comes Marriage. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. p. 24. ISBN 9780393248678.
- ↑ "Michael D. Palm". palmcenter.org.
- ↑ "Palm Center". palmcenter.org. Archived from the original on 2015-07-23.
- ↑ Mark Thompson (September 16, 2011). "The Lessons of Ending 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'". Time .
- ↑ Aaron Belkin. "Aaron Belkin - Professor, Author, Executive Director". aaronbelkin.org.
- ↑ German Lopez (February 16, 2015). "Report: Army considers easing ban on transgender soldiers". Vox.
- ↑ "Aaron Belkin". Huffington Post .
