What was “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and why did it face a lot of backlash from the LGBTQ+ community?
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Before DADT, disclosure of your sexual preference was required for military service. Lying about it *could* (but rarely did) wind you up in jail, but routinely wound up with you being booted. How bad the boot was changed on a variety of circumstances (length of service, disposition of CO, flagrancy, etc – in short, it was very subjective). Commanders could and would pursue investigations into people suspected of being homesexual. and of those known not to be, but that the commanders wanted out of the military for whatever reason.
When DADT went into effect, it was, as many have pointed out, a compromise. It did not receive the grassroots backlash that people seem to think it did, but vocal minorities in the LBGT and Conservative communities were against it (how’s that for irony?), while the rank and file were mostly “What? Why bother – we already know and we really don’t care, as long as they do the job and don’t try to pick *us* up”. As with all complicated things, there were extremists on both sides, of course. DADT(DP) ended the Commanders’ witch hunts (mostly), provided extremely minimal protections for the military LGBT community, enhanced recruitment efforts, and was considered a baby step forward for overall LGBT rights. But baby steps were all that were politically expedient at the time.
The repeal of DADT – something not often talked about – was a dangerous situation, in that it was always possible that it could have been a true repeal – meaning that the laws and regulations would go back to how they were in the 80s: witch hunts and service denials all around. Soldiers were advised that if they were not out of the closet at the time, that they should remain in the closet until the fallout of the repeal was more widely understood. Fortunately, things did not go that route, and civil rights for military LGBTs have improved in the intervening time, but it was much scarier at that point than most people realize.
Source: personal experience. I was there for it all.
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