Partial Reversal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Only a Beginning

The reversal of one policy fuels the questioning of discrimination, diplomacy, and the use of the military.

–––

The United States Congress, in February 2011, passed and President Obama signed historic bipartisan legislation to rescind the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” policy enacted in 1993 mandating that lesbians, gays, and bisexuals who join the ranks of the armed forces maintain complete silence regarding their sexual identities. Over the years, the military dishonorably discharged an estimated 14,000 service members on the so-called “charge” of being “homosexual” under this policy. On September 20, 2011 the policy reversal went into effect, but it did not go far enough. Military policy continues to restrict trans* and intersex people from joining.

Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, last May, however, raised the possibility that a part of the remaining restrictions may soon fall when he stated that the ban on trans* soldiers

“continually should be reviewed.”

He did not, though, talk about opening the injunction on intersex people.

His comment came after a study released by the Palm Center reporting that approximately 15,000 trans* people are currently secretly serving in the armed forces, and an additional 130,000 or more trans* veterans reside in the larger population. Some of our nation’s allies, like Canada and Great Britain, openly admit trans* service members.

As our troops are currently stretched thin throughout the world’s conflict areas, the former U.S. ban on LGB recruits and continuing prohibition on trans* and intersex people only exacerbates the problem and discredits our country by eliminating entire classes of people whose only desire is to contribute to the defense of their nation.

The policy in 2011 partially ended an era of blatant stereotyping, scapegoating, and marginalization of LGB people. It opened a new epoch in which LGB service members can serve their country proudly with honesty and with a deep sense of integrity. In addition, now a formerly excluded group of talented and committed students can join ROTC programs, and a new cohort of active service members will receive the benefits of educational and career enhancement opportunities. This policy must now extend to trans* and intersex individuals as well.

They will enter into a social institution that often works to prevent genocidal slaughters anywhere throughout the world, and engage in humanitarian and peace keeping efforts – from disaster relief to cooling a number of the world’s “hot spots.”

As I have followed the debates over the years, I have been constantly struck by the arguments favoring maintenance of the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” policy, ranging from fears over the “predatory nature of homosexuals” in bunks and showers, to “homosexuals” crumbling under the pressure of combat, to the medicalization and supposed “unnaturalness” of trans* and intersex people, to LGBTI service members placing themselves in compromising situations in which they will be forced to divulge critical defense secrets to foreign governments. I give credit to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and intersex people for maintaining a willingness to join the military following scurrilous and libelous depictions.

◊♦◊

While stated military goals may promote the notion of providing global security and protecting and defending the homeland, we must maintain and extend our focused and continued attention and critique, however, on the overriding abuses of maintaining a military that engages in unjustified incursions into other lands controlled by an industrial complex that promotes corporate interests.

In this regard, history is replete with not-so-illustrious examples of U.S. policy abuses enacted and enforced by the military establishment—from the extermination, forced relocation, and land confiscation of native peoples on this continent, to the unjustified and contrived war with Mexico, to the racist-inspired incarceration of Japanese Americans in the interior U.S. during World War II, to governmental destabilization efforts and military incursions into such places as Vietnam and Laos, Chile, El Salvador, Panama, the Philippians, and throughout the Middle East.

During the past decade, we have lost thousands of our brave warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the current military defense budget of approximately 768 billion dollars seriously drains our treasury and increases our national debt.

◊♦◊

Looking over the history of humanity, it is apparent that tyranny, at times, could only be countered through the raising of arms. On numerous occasions, however, diplomacy has been successful, and at other times, it should have been used more extensively before rushing to war.

I, therefore, find it unacceptable when one’s patriotism and one’s love of country is called into question when one advocates for peaceful means of conflict resolution, for it is also an act of patriotism to work to keep our troops out of harm’s way, and to work to create conditions and understanding that ultimately make war less likely.

I contend that individuals and groups that stand up and put their lives on the line to defend the country from very real threats are true patriots. But true patriots are also those who speak out, stand up, and challenge our governmental leaders, those who put their lives on the line by actively advocating for justice, freedom, and liberty through peaceful means: the diplomats and the mediators; those working in conflict resolution; the activists dedicated to preventing wars and to bringing existing wars to diplomatic resolution once they have begun; the individuals of conscience who refuse to give over their minds, their souls, and their bodies to armed conflict; the practitioners of non-violent resistance in the face of tyranny and oppression; the anti-war activists who strive to educate their peers, their citizenry, and, yes, their governmental leaders about the perils of unjustified and unjust armed conflict and invasions into lands not their own in advance of appropriate attempts at diplomatic means of resolving conflict.

While the partial reversal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” reforms, while not fully eliminating a discriminatory policy, it in no way addresses the intense interconnections between the U.S. military and corporate interests and the promotion of U.S. capitalist hegemony worldwide.

The post Partial Reversal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Only a Beginning appeared first on The Good Men Project.