find themselves abandoned by the very government under which they served and, in many cases, suffered.
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“While the fight for marriage equality continues to dominate the conversation in the LGBT community and mainstream media, we’ve turned our backs on our LGBT soldiers and veterans. DADT may be over and dead, but we must remain vigilant in the fight against LGBT inequality in the military, because our soldiers and veterans are still at risk,” Smith adds.
Think LGBT Soldiers Are Equal Post DADT?
THINK AGAIN!
Organizations like OutServe-SLDN—created to help thousands of these veterans challenge their dishonorable discharges and claim the benefits they are owed—find themselves struggling to get funded, due to the overwhelming sense that, since DADT was repealed, LGBT soldiers and vets no longer need help.
by Sebastian Fortino
In his new book Closets, Combat, and Coming Out: Coming of Age as a Gay Man in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Army, Rob Smith writes about the five years he spent as an infantry soldier in the U.S. Army from the ages of 17 to 22. Smith was a poor, black, gay kid from Ohio who entered the military right out of high school because it was his only means to get a college education.
“It is important to remember that as long as there is no nondiscrimination policy in regard to sexual orientation in the U.S. military, as long as transgender soldiers cannot serve openly, and as long as thousands of soldiers fight for their rightful benefits, the fight for LGBT equality in the military is not over,” Smith says. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’s repeal may have won the battle, but it did not win the war: we must not forget our military brothers and sisters in—or out of—uniform.”
“While I suffered silently under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I also survived the policy, earning an honorable discharge and much needed benefits,” Smith recalls. “However, thousands of my fellow LGBT soldiers were not so lucky. Not only did they suffer the humiliation of a dishonorable discharge, but they were also stripped of the very same hard-earned benefits I received, and the consequences have been dire.”
Closets, Combat, and Coming Out is available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other LGBT booksellers. For more on Rob Smith, visit www.robsmithonline.com. For more on OutServe-SLDN, visit www.sldn.org. Rob Smith
Additionally, though the repeal of DADT allows lesbian, gay, and bisexual soldiers to openly serve, it is not a nondiscrimination policy; harassment remains common, and Smith mentions transgender soldiers can still be dishonorably discharged. “I’m betting most Americans, gay or straight, just assumed the repeal of DADT has leveled the playing field for LGBT soldiers and discrimination is now legally a thing of the past. For every Facebook photo of a smiling LGBT soldier, there are hundreds of veterans and fellow LGBT [people] living in fear,” he says. That these LGBT soldiers have been forgotten since the DADT repeal was implemented is a bitter reminder of how much mainstream America continues to forget its veterans.
LGBT veterans who were dishonorably discharged—already at greater risk of unemployment, homelessness, and suicide due to post-traumatic stress disorder-related mental health issues—now
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photo by Omar Columbus
“I get angry when I realize that while our LGB (no T) soldiers can now serve openly, they remain unprotected by a nondiscrimination policy. I get angry when I realize that transgender soldiers still cannot serve openly and can be dishonorably discharged for being who they are. I get angry when I realize that thousands of soldiers who were dishonorably discharged because of DADT are now unable to claim the educational and health care benefits, which they are rightfully owed in exchange for serving their country.”