Gay congressmen tell Pentagon to restore honor of soldiers dismissed under “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”

Out Reps. Robert Garcia (D-CA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), and Chris Pappas (D-NH) have asked Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to expedite the process for former LGBTQ+ soldiers still seeking to upgrade their less-than-honorable discharges after being kicked out of the military under “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) and other historic bans on out queer military service members.

In their letter, the representatives noted that over 114,000 military members were discharged for being LGBTQ+. Their less-than-honorable discharges endangered their future “job prospects, home ownership, educational opportunities, and health and disability veterans’ benefits,” the letter stated.

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“Since DADT repeal [in 2010], many veterans who sought to upgrade their less than honorable discharges reported a prolonged and burdensome process, often requiring the use of a lawyer, to seek the respect and benefits they rightfully earned,” the letter adds. “And far too many veterans discharged under DADT had no idea they could seek an upgrade or where to start the process.”

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According to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) latest figures from March 2023, only 57% of the 32,837 veterans discharged for “Homosexual Conduct” between 1980 and DADT’s 2010 repeal have received honorable discharges, the representatives wrote. This has left a large number of less-than-honorable dischargees uncorrected.

The DOD decided in September 2023 to proactively review records of these service members dismissed under DADT and forward their cases to the respective service secretaries and boards for potential correction. However, in their recent letter, the representatives asked Austin for more information about discharged soldiers who have applied for honorable discharges, their current status in the process, and the DOD’s ability to proactively review and upgrade their discharge statuses on a prompt timeline. The representatives requested Austin to provide this information by March 1.

“The United States government has a moral obligation to right the wrongs it committed when it dishonorably discharged veterans from the armed services on the grounds of their sexual orientation,” Rep. Pocan wrote in a statement about the recent letter.

“While it’s been thirteen years since the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the trauma of these policies is not over, and for far too many LGBTQ+ service members and veterans, their injustice has not been corrected,” Rep. Pappas added.

In September 2023, out Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) and other members of Congress proposed a commission to study the impacts that DADT had on queer and non-queer military members.

The commission would gather testimony and hold hearings on the effects these policies had on discharged soldiers’ physical, mental, psychological, financial, and professional well-being and the policies’ effects on straight soldiers, particularly women and people of color who were targeted for their perceived queerness. The commission would also suggest how the federal government “may offer an apology” to LGBTQ+ veterans and their families and find “appropriate ways to educate the American public about institutionalized and government-sanctioned discrimination.”

A short history of DADT: Why it happened, and why it was repealed

The U.S. military policy of dishonorably discharging out service members dates back to 1947 and was modified in 1981 to make it easier for the government to defend it in court without having to prove military claims that accepting out homosexuals “seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission.”

DADT was instituted in 1992 by President Bill Clinton. Though Clinton initially wanted to allow LGB people to serve as their authentic selves, congressional Republicans and the heads of the U.S. military branches opposed it, so the ban was Clinton’s “compromise.”

However, by 1998, Clinton admitted that DADT hadn’t functioned like he thought it would. The erratically applied policy more than doubled the number of LGB people dishonorably discharged from the military and increased anti-gay sentiment in the ranks. It also led to LGB servicemembers having to lie and stay closeted while they risked being blackmailed, interrogated, and threatened with violence from fellow servicemembers.

Interestingly, the so-called War on Terror, which followed the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, led to the lowest number of discharged gay and bisexual soldiers in nearly 30 years. This was likely due to them staying closeted and commanders not discharging qualified soldiers. Regardless, it undermined the claim that out servicemembers undermined military readiness.

Concurrently, gay activists and groups like the Servicemembers League Defense Network increased public condemnation of the policy, stating that tens of thousands of gay military members had already successfully served with some degree of outness with no serious repercussions. These groups also noted that the policy undermined the U.S. military’s supposed virtues of truth, honor, dignity, and respect.

In a December 2010 Senate vote, eight Republican senators crossed party lines to repeal the ban in a 65-31 vote. Four days later, President Barack Obama signed the repeal into law. The next year, the DOD created a Support Plan for Implementation of the repeal. The full repeal went into effect on September 20, 2011.

A 2021 report commissioned by the heads of the U.S. military found that repealing the ban had no negative impact on military readiness, effectiveness, or unit cohesion, despite worries to the contrary. At least 32,837 service members were discharged from the military due to their sexual orientation since 1980, according to DOD data.