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15 history-making LGBTQ+ veterans who fought for equality
This Memorial Day weekend, we’re taking time to commemorate the lives and contributions of LGBTQ+ service members, those who fought for our country while fighting the stigma that came with “serving while gay.”
Serving openly wasn’t an option for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. for many years until the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011.
“Serving while gay” wasn’t technically forbidden until 1982, when the Reagan administration enacted a policy explicitly banning gay men and lesbians from the armed forces. Same-sex relations in the military, however, had long been criminalized, as they were in society at large. In the 1940s, the Department of Defense classified same-sex attraction as a mental illness and a reason for dishonorable discharge.
Yet for more than 200 years before that landmark reversal in 2011, countless LGBTQ+ people did serve in the military. Sometimes their sexuality or gender identity was an open secret and overlooked. More often, if discovered, it was used as a bludgeon to drum them out of service.
The following is a list of 15 notable LGBTQ+ Americans, just a fraction of those who’ve served with distinction, from the Revolutionary War in 1775 to the debut of Space Force in 2019.
Serving openly wasn’t an option for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. for many years until the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011.
“Serving while gay” wasn’t technically forbidden until 1982, when the Reagan administration enacted a policy explicitly banning gay men and lesbians from the armed forces. Same-sex relations in the military, however, had long been criminalized, as they were in society at large. In the 1940s, the Department of Defense classified same-sex attraction as a mental illness and a reason for dishonorable discharge.
Yet for more than 200 years before that landmark reversal in 2011, countless LGBTQ+ people did serve in the military. Sometimes their sexuality or gender identity was an open secret and overlooked. More often, if discovered, it was used as a bludgeon to drum them out of service.
The following is a list of 15 notable LGBTQ+ Americans, just a fraction of those who’ve served with distinction, from the Revolutionary War in 1775 to the debut of Space Force in 2019.
MORE
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/05/15-history-making-lgbtq-veterans-who-fought-for-equality/