LGBTQ+ service members face large-scale barriers to economic stability. Current military guidelines also prohibit intersex individuals from serving openly in the armed forces. Such policies disproportionately target gay service members, who have faced social and cultural stigma following the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. A recent court ruling has sought to end such openly discriminatory policies for service members who are diagnosed after enlisting, but these individuals still face large-scale discrimination.
To this day, the military does not allow individuals who test positive for HIV to enlist-and among those who are already enlisted, testing positive creates monumental barriers to advancement, generally preventing service members from being deployed and holding officer positions. A 2019 survey found that 93 percent of transgender service members have reported at least one instance of stigma in the military because of their gender identity, including bullying and barriers to obtaining gender-affirming services. Transgender individuals were also banned from serving in the military from 1960 until 2016, and from 2019 to 2021-though as many as 20 percent of transgender individuals have served in the military at some time in their lives. Chad Plenge said that the only time he had seen service members experience as much fear as coming out in the military “was in Afghanistan when were being attacked.” Speaking at the West Point pride ceremony referenced above, Maj. LGBT service members are more likely to experience sexual harassment, stalking, and sexual assault than their non-LGBT counterparts, and stigma is such that 59 percent of LGBT service members are not openly gay in their workplace. Furthermore, the immense difficulties of serving under DADT meant that many individuals were effectively pushed out of service before they became eligible to receive benefits- many of which are only available to veterans who served two or more years.įor current LGBTQ+ service members, significant cultural barriers persist, and those serving regularly experience mistreatment and discrimination at the hands of their superiors and fellow service members, who are more likely than the general population to hold anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-but the legacy of DADT has made it difficult for many to find jobs. In an important step forward, the Biden administration in 2021 made it possible for LGBTQ+ veterans with less-than-honorable discharges to receive many benefits from the U.S. Since the repeal of DADT, service members who were discharged because of their sexual orientation have had the opportunity to appeal for an honorable discharge-but the immense difficulty in accessing the necessary records and the potential need for legal representation means that fewer than 500 veterans have made the request.Ī less-than-honorable discharge as a result of DADT can effectively bar former service members from accessing necessary resources, including financial support. It is estimated that more than 14,000 gay and lesbian individuals were subject to less-than-honorable discharges as a result of this policy. For LGBTQ+ individuals serving during this time, DADT placed an immense toll on both mental and physical health-from the need to hide their true selves and the constant fear of discovery to the inability to disclose their sexual orientation to military health care providers.
Until 2011, the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, established in 1994, banned gay, lesbian, and bisexual (LGB) individuals from openly serving in the military. History and legacy of discriminatory policies