Gays in the Military
Gays in the Military is a visual and audio investigation into how the military’s ban on homosexuality affected the lives and careers of LGBT service members and veterans since World War II. The project combines photographs, text and audio to recount the overwhelming consequences of gay bans over the decades with intimate portraits of service members and veterans and their stories of discrimination, harassment, and civil and human rights abuses based on sexual orientation or the perception of sexual preference, resulting in lost careers and damaged lives.
Beginning November 2009, I traveled across the United States recording oral histories and making portraits of LGBTQ+ veterans and service members. Over the course of three years, I traveled over 10,000 miles in five road trips: from New York to Florida on the East Coast, California to Washington on the West Coast, the Mountain West subregions, the Gulf Coast, and the Chicago Metropolitan area. In the privacy of their homes, I interviewed and photographed over 120 subjects from different geographic, socio-economic, ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds, and from all ranks in the military, ranging from a 92-year-old World War II veteran to recent enlistees, active duty personnel, and veterans who were discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the gay ban dating back to the 1950s.
The visual and oral histories reveal marked differences in the effects of the ban on individual service members based on cultural, social and political milieu, religious background, rank in the military, and geographic location. The narratives recount incidents of unjust protocols, unrestricted interpretation of the law, prolonged interrogations leading to cognitive and psychological damage, hazing, sexual harassment, violent rape and abuse, mandatory outings of fellow service members, profiling, blackmail, betrayal and verbal abuse. Benefits and job opportunities were stripped from those who were “less than honorable discharge.” Since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed in 2011 under the Obama administration, service members are now allowed to serve openly, and yet even after the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned and ruled unconstitutional in 2013, LGBT personnel, their spouses and families still were not receiving the same benefits as their heterosexual counterparts. In 2024, benefits were reinstated by reversing discharges to “honorable” for over 800 service members of the approximately 14,000 who were discharged under DADT. To this day, veterans are still fighting to have their benefits reinstated.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: Gays have served in the U.S. military from the beginning of our history as a nation. However, the word homosexual was not part of the lexicon until the late 1800s. From the time of the Revolutionary War, it was sodomy that was banned in the military and it remained the reason for which those who committed any act of sodomy were discharged until the First World War, when homosexual behavior became the chosen term. As the United States prepared to enter World War II, psychiatry labeled homosexuality as a mental illness and the military added psychiatric screening to its induction process. Military psychiatrists warned that psychopathic personality disorders made homosexual individuals unfit to fight. The military issued the first formal regulation listing homosexuality and service members identified as homosexuals as a cause for discharge. Those discharged were denied veterans benefits.
Expressing national security and counterespionage concerns, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450 in 1951 listing sexual perversion as a security risk and grounds for termination or denial of employment for all Federal employees. From the 1950s until the Vietnam War homosexuals were allowed to serve when personnel shortages occurred and the 1980s brought a rise of witch hunts to maintain the status quo. During this period, the United States was not involved in any major conflicts therefore it wasn’t necessary to retain an inflated military. Many gay and lesbian people still served, sometimes under more oppressive conditions.
At the onset of the 1990s, opposition to serving openly was increasing giving rise to even more discharges; 36% were women, disproportionately higher than the number of women in the armed forces. Accounts of sexual harassment, hazing, psychological disorders and suicide attempts also increased. In 1992, Allen R. Schindler, Jr, a U.S. Navy Radioman Petty Officer Third Class was murdered for being gay. The case became synonymous with the debate over the gay ban in the military.
As a result, Congress enacted Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) into law in 1993 during the Clinton Administration.1 DADT barred openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people from serving in the military while allowing closeted gays and lesbians the right to serve, as long as they did not disclose their sexual identity or act in a way that would identify them as gay or lesbian. The law and policy defined homosexuality as "an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability."
It was intended, also, to protect closeted gay service members by prohibiting efforts to discover or make the person reveal or to ask about their sexual identity. Less commonly known, however, is that the law also protected service members from being pursued or harassed even if suspected of being gay or lesbian. Investigations, however, could occur based only on credible information by a reliable person.
DADT undermined unit morale and unit cohesion and, in some instances, seriously compromised combat readiness, outcomes that those who opposed the repeal of DADT have argued that it was intended to prevent. The paradox of DADT is that it put into law what was previously only military policy - the first time any group protected under anti-discrimination law was legally barred from serving in the military and the first time in US history that the civil rights of any group or minority was limited by legislation, rather than expanded.
During Don't Ask, Don't Tell alone, there were over 14,500 service members discharged under the law with a cost of over half a billion dollars to taxpayers. In many cases, these men and women - highly skilled, well educated, patriotic, and courageous - including approximately 800 troops such as pilots, combat engineers, and linguists possessing skills deemed mission critical attained high rank, received numerous medals, and held top-level jobs that were deemed mission-critical. The policy prohibited service members from receiving honorable discharges and stripped them of the benefits accorded them for serving their country, sometimes under the extreme conditions of combat zones. In many cases there was no recourse. LGBT veterans continue to suffer, seek justice for their service, and fight to restore their benefits or apply for reinstatement. Many suffer the same medical, physical and psychological effects of war.
In his election campaign, President Barack Obama advocated a full repeal of the laws barring gays from serving in the military. In December 2010, Congress enacted a bill to repeal DADT, with the provision that the policy would remain in place until the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certified that repealing the policy would not hurt military readiness. After some studies, the certification was sent to Congress, setting a date after a 60-day waiting period for the end of DADT. Don't Ask, Don't Tell officially came to an end on September 20, 2011