The United Kingdom celebrates nine years of an officially uncloseted military this year, and the Independent (UK) provides a glimpse of life since the ban was lifted. It isn’t all roses and candles, but the transition seems to have gone much more smoothly than anyone anticipated. Best of all, the US military seems to be meeting quietly with their counterparts to find out how to implement lifting the ban.
British servicemen and women now march at Gay Pride in uniform, all three services have become Stonewall diversity champions and a few months ago the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt made history when he became the first army chief to address a Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender conference. "Respect for others is not an optional extra," he said.
Perhaps most tellingly, senior officers from the US have been quietly holding talks with their British counterparts on how America can change its "don’t ask, don’t tell" police which has seen more than 12,500 members discharged since its inception 16 years ago.
The British military didn’t leap out of its closet willingly; a court case went to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled the gay ban couldn’t be sustained.
Overnight service personnel who had been expected to inform on anyone they suspected of being gay were told they must now respect the rights of their colleagues. Men and women who had lived in fear of being followed by the SIB (Special Investigation Branch), enduring degrading interrogations and searches, were told they could freely talk of their sexual orientation. In the army alone, 298 personnel had been discharged in 1999 for their sexuality.
And the military — and those who serve in it? How have they coped with the change? Several good lessons here:
A confidential review two years later across all three services found that most officers and junior ranks, particularly among the younger ones, had accepted the lifting of the ban without much comment. It was only amongst the older Senior Non-Commissioned and Warrant Officers that it had met significant resistance.
With the introduction of civil partnerships in 2005, married quarters were renamed Service Family Accommodation and homosexual couples were given the same priority as their heterosexual counterparts alongside pension and compensation rights.
Marching in Pride parades, joining Stonewall organizations, running lesbian and gay forums to help young military people cope with their sexual orientation and the stress of coming-out: these are all new for the UK military, but seem to be happening even as some who have not yet got the message show that the military is like any other organization adjusting to rapid change.
While the Navy has put recruitment ads in the Pink press, [Lieutenant Commander Mandy McBain] learned of one recruiter who informed a potential candidate that he could not be openly gay in the Royal Marines. The recruiter was spoken to and reminded that the British military no longer has any issue with sexual orientation.
"We educate as much as possible but we can’t get rid of all the prejudices," she said: "It has been a big learning process for everybody. The forum is there to help people if they find themselves in an uncomfortable position."
There are lots of lessons here for the American military, and if the story that our service branches are talking to their UK counterparts about implementation is true, good for them. It’s going to be a big step for our military organizations when we lift our ban, and chance favors the prepared.
Related posts:
- DADT: Gates Open to Opening Gates?
- Late Night: Stonewall (and the Black Cat) — Happy Anniversary, Gay Rights Movement
- Why Can’t CIA Handle the Same Level of Oversight the Military Gets?
- Reported Military Frustration with Obama Afghanistan Review Misses That US is a Democracy
- David Kris: Our Only Military Commission Convictions May be Illegal
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ZED!!
It is high time the US did the same Teddy!!
I hope for the best and I’m leaving it at that.
Wonderful post Teddy, merci.
Yes, and someone should ask our Pentagon about these meetings. Who is having them, under whose orders, and on what timetable? The Pentagon shouldn’t be having these meetings secretly; we should know what other military’s unclosetings they are also looking at (Canada? Israel? Australia?)
Having the Pentagon saying “no plans” when our allies claim they meet with us isn’t helpful.
ONe of the things people miss, so often, about the military is that it is a Command environment. No one could make servicemen love African-Americans when the troops were integrated under Truman. But orders were given to treat everyone the same. This is what will happen with gay and lesbian discrimination as well: no one says you have to be anyone’s best friend, but once non-discrimination is the order from the top, things go smoothly.
Not that this could have happened under that bigot Peter Pace, but he’s gone and things are improving.
You are welcome, and thank you!
But even if the Pentagon is conducting these meetings, they have to obfuscate and hide the meetings for self preservation.
Too many wing nut types in Congress that would immediately grandstand the issue and try to pass a law banning even the discussions.
The one thing that is difficult, both for closeted troops and their superiors, is that suddenly “I’m not lying to you anymore about the thing I lied to you vigorously about yesterday. The fellow who was my roommate, honest sir! is now my partner, that gal I go on holidays with is my wife,” and so on. This, many British troops thought, would be the hardest part of coming out to fellow servicemembers and superiors: “You know that thing you asked me about? Well, I was lying to you.”
Especially for troops under active investigation, suddenly all the lies they were telling were neither operative nor required. How would their peers and their bosses react to being lied to, in some cases for years? Wouldn’t people be angry?
But most people seemed to understand that the previous regime was brutally inhumane. And they let the lies go.
On a related note, Senator Gillibrand plans hearings this fall on DADT:
I have it on deepest background that the reason for the lifting of the Gay Ban was that spies have informed the separate post commanders that the term actually referred to a non-regulation and expensive pair of commie sunglasses sold at the BX.
I say let the asswipes Filibuster and then we can make sure their names are posted all over the place and use it against them at their election time!! Oh na d make sure that it widely know that are taking basic rights away from American Citizens!!
I’m lucky enough to have a ‘vacation’ home (which became my full-time home from Bush’s invasion of Iraq until last spring) in southern Spain, and remember reading a weekend feature piece there in El Pais sometime around 2001-2002 about the addition of gay couples to on-base married-couples’ housing on Spanish military bases. The focus of the story was that it was no big deal. The only opposition came from the Catholic Church, and nobody’s paid any attention to them for decades. Within the military itself, it was pretty much a non-event.
Oh, but nahant — you know that filibusters break the highly valued comity of the US Senate! We can’t have Harry Reid bringing anything to the floor that won’t get 60 votes. Except of course the crossing-state-lines concealed-carry bill which ended up getting only 58 votes. Funny how GOPs always get their bills to the the floor and debated despite not having 60 votes, isn’t it?