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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First thing’s first: the primary thing a lot of people here are going to get wrong is that it wasn’t the military’s policy, it was Congress’s. The military couldn’t change it even if they wanted to until Congress changed the law.
Now for the details. Prior to 1993, there was a blanket ban on homosexuality within the military, as per federal law. In the early 1990s President Clinton sought to change that, but he ran into a *lot* of resistance. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was the compromise Congress came up with, and changed the law to allow homosexuals to serve within the military as long as they kept it to themselves. The military modified their regulations to suit the law, questions about sexual orientation were removed from recruitment documents, and discharges processes were updated (prior to 1993, a discharge for homosexuality was an automatic Dishonorable Discharge, which carries the same weight as a felony conviction).
The new policy was exactly what it says: you aren’t allowed to ask a troop if they’re gay, but they’re not allowed to tell anybody, either. There’s a third piece to the policy that’s often forgotten, which is “Don’t Pursue,” meaning that if you suspect someone is gay you’re not allowed to try and prove it.
In reality it didn’t change anything for homosexual servicemembers. They were already in the closet before the change, and they had to stay in the closet afterward upon threat of discharge. They were still subject to homophobic behavior, jokes, and pranks (especially in the Combat Arms fields, google “gay chicken” if you want specifics) and had zero recourse because they couldn’t complain without outing themselves.
Things didn’t get better until 2011 when Congress finally allowed the military to change the policy allowing openly gay servicemembers, but there were still a *lot* of issues. For example, the law didn’t allow the military to recognize gay marriage, and homosexual acts were still illegal as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice (also controlled by Congress) outlawed oral sex, anal sex, and use of “toys”.
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