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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Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 was issued on December 21, 1993 and was in effect from February 28, 1994 until September 20, 2011. The directive prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual/bisexual service members or applicants while barring openly gay/lesbian/bisexual persons from military service. It was nicknamed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for this reason – military officers didn’t ask about sexual orientation and military members didn’t offer that information freely.
So long as everyone remained “in the closet” everything functioned smoothly, but if you were ever discovered you’d be discharged. The policy was basicly, “We are fine with you being gay, so long as it **never** comes up and you **never** let **anyone** know you are gay.”
It faced backlash from the LGBTQ community for obvious reasons – the only way to serve in the military was to actively hide your sexuality. Gay members of the military lived in fear every day that they would be discovered and lose their entire careers.
It continued the idea that non-heterosexuality was “wrong” and you could only be a functioning member of society if you didn’t let anyone know you were gay.
It was a policy in the US military that, to my understanding, forbade two things. First, you were not allowed to be gay. Well, you were technically allowed to be gay, but if anybody found out, you’d be discharged. Second, it also forbade anyone from asking anyone else about their sexuality. The result of these two rules (well, mostly the first one) was that closeted gay (and bi) servicemembers could never feel truly secure in their careers. Even a rumor that they were gay could see them investigated, and it was very likely that they’d be discharged following that. Beyond that, it made it impossible for gay servicemembers to ever come out of the closet, since if they did, they’d be discharged.
* Back in the 90s there was a lot of arguing over allowing gay men to serve in the US military.
* There was a belief that if a soldier knew another soldier in their unit was gay it would be too distracting or otherwise interfere with performing the duties of soldier.
* So the “compromise” was this policy that prohibited soldiers from deliberately revealing they were gay and also prohibited soldiers from asking another solider if they were gay.
* This backlash from the LGBTQ+ community was for pretty obvious reasons.
* Soldiers had to pretend to not be gay in order to keep being a part of the military.
* Some soldiers, despite their best efforts, were outed and removed from service.
* In hindsight it was a misguided policy though some can argue that socially and culturally it was the only option the public would accept at the time.
* I offer no personal opinion about this policy as I’m just stating the facts as I knew them.
It was the official US military policy on non-heterosexual (and non-cisgender) service members.
The “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” was the US Military policy where personnel were not meant to ask if someone was gay, lesbian, whatever. And people who were in the military that were gay, lesbian, whatever, were supposed to not tell anyone. Keep it to themselves.
Basically it was the US Military telling LGBT+ people “Listen, we don’t want to hunt down and kick gays out of the military, but we ALSO don’t want to publicly support LGBT service members, so just don’t cause any trouble, got it? Thanks.”
This meant that LGBT service members at that time had to hide their identities to avoid facing any repercussions.
Because if it DID get out that you were LGBT in the military, they could and would absolutely kick your ass out.
In addition to forcing people to be in the closet, the “don’t tell” part didn’t apply to other people. Even if the service member didn’t tell anyone, they could still be outed by others and kicked out of the military if anyone found out.
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”.
I’m a veteran
If Dont Ask Dont Tell kept up lgbt families wouldnt gave been able to participate in like family functions becuz it would “expose”
So Clinton wanted to let gays in the military… and people in the ranks revolted… republicans and democrays were against it… Dont ask, Dont tell, was a compromise. LGBTQs hated because it was a compromise, but longer term thinkers saw it as a wedge that could be slowly hammered upon until one could have what they want.
There are interesting audio clips from that era. “The first casualty of war is truth, the next the value of human life.” “Fraggings didnt begin or end in Vietnam.”
For a long time the US military banned homosexuals and others we’d today identify as LGBTQ+ from enlisting. If a serviceman was suspected of being secretly queer, an official investigation would be launched and they’d almost certainly be discharged.
In the 90s growing backlash against queer discrimination led them to revise this policy… barely. Essentially they moved from “stay out of the military, gay people” to “stay in the closet if you want to join the military, gay people.” The new policy was nicknamed “don’t ask, don’t tell” because a major point of it was that they’d no longer hold official investigations into soldiers’ sexuality (“don’t ask”), but would still be rejecting or discharging anyone who was openly homosexual (“don’t tell”).
Naturally the LGBTQ+ community considered this a slap in the face since it could barely be said to be a change from the old discriminatory policy. Queer servicemen still had to hide, they couldn’t complain if other servicemen found out and quietly harassed them over it (since that would mean “telling”), and there was a constant risk of being arbitrarily discharged if your superiors found out.
First thing you need to understand is that prior to 1994, non-starlight people were forbidden from serving in the military. If a gay person signed up, then someone found out they were gay that person would receive a dishonorable discharge. This is the military equivalent of being both fired and convicted of a crime all rolled together. It’s the same treatment that a deserter would get, or someone who punched a superior officer in the nuts.
Similar to a criminal record, the discharged gay person might have a hard time getting a civilian job. It was REALLY a bad situation. Yet, lots of gay people felt that they had an obligation to serve and so they just kept their secuality a secret. And they hoped that the secret never came out.
Over and over this “no gays” rule came under scretunity. People would defend it, say that it was needed for battle readiness or other such bullshit. But it’s really important for you to understand that the people in the military took the rule extremally seriously.
By the time we get to the 90s it’s becoming not OK to discriminate against gay people. Still not all the way there, but moving in that direction. And so the president (Bill Clinton) attempts to allow gay people to serve in the military by just changing the rule. He gets a huge amount of push back from both Republicans AND top Military brass.
So a compromise. The military would be forbidden from asking if someone was gay (the “Don’t ask”). And military members would similarly be forbidden from coming out as gay (the “don’t tell”).
Those 2 rules in combination meant that it was now impossible for a superiour officer to find out, and confirm, that someone is or is not gay. Therefore gay people were now allowed to serve, as long as they remained in the closet. Even if some side evidfance is discovered, the military brass was not allowed to ask about it.
So “don’t ask, don’t tell” became the law of the land and stayed that way until 2011 when it was finally changed to allow out gay people to serve.
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