Perspective: Congress is taking a good first step to address the mistreatment of LGBT veterans
This came on the heels of the Department of Veterans Affairs announcing in September that it would restore access to benefits to veterans who received other than honorable discharges because of their sexual orientation. These are two critical steps toward addressing discrimination that harmed an estimated 100,000 or more veterans discharged for homosexuality between World War II and the 2011 repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Fully redressing these wrongs may be impossible.
Commanders frequently issued “blue discharges” for suspected homosexuality, and they also went disproportionately to Black soldiers. Because individual cases could be reconsidered based on their facts, many veterans accused of homosexuality sought help from veterans’ and civil rights organizations to appeal their discharges or obtain upgrades. But they found little success as appeals processes typically determined that the discharges had not violated procedure.
Importantly, personnel separations were rarely dispassionate administrative processes; they were investigations, many of which were extremely extensive and invasive. The records of these investigations were often hundreds of pages long and were frequently classified. They could include interrogations by military police, witness statements and other elements of criminal investigations, such as stakeouts or polygraph tests.
But facing the threat of criminal trial and potential imprisonment, many soldiers signed this acknowledgment.The regulations about homosexuality changed several times in the 1950s and 1960s and were often extremely vague, as military leaders struggled to define something that evaded definition.
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