Gay navy men
No Longer Silent: A Story of LGBTQIA+ Service in the Navy
For centuries, LGBTQIA+ sailors served their territory in silence. From the early days of Continental Navy, through USS Constitution’s active sailing years, and into the 20th century, homosexuality was a crime subject to punishment by court martial, usually resulting in discharge. Beginning in World War II, the military instituted an outright ban on homosexual service members.1 It wasn’t until that a new law colloquially called “Don’t Seek , Don’t Tell” (DADT) took effect, theoretically lifting the ban by suspending questions and discussions among military personnel about sexual orientation.2
Brooklyn native Robert Santiago joined the U.S. Navy in , during the military’s ban on LGBTQIA+ people serving openly in the armed forces. At the time, the question on year-old Santiago’s mind was, “What’s going to unfold while I’m in service, while I’m wearing the uniform?” Santiago, who is gay, resolved that he would do everything achievable to finish at least one tour of duty. “I was very attentive the first couple of years, when
'I was dismissed from the Navy for being gay'
A review into the impact of a ban on LGBT people serving in the military is to be carried out, more than 20 years after the law was changed.
One former Royal Navy medic who was dismissed from the military for being gay in told BBC Radio's Excellent Morning Scotland that the experience left him suicidal.
Chris Ferguson, from Edinburgh, said LGBT servicemen and women were treated "disgracefully", and has called for them to receive reparations.
He said up until , "we had gay men in prison for being gay".
Chris, now 61, had been in the navy as a medic for three years, and was studying with the army as good, when he was told the special investigation branch "were coming to verb me".
"I knew immediately what it was - it was terrifying," he said.
He said they searched his possessions and took him to a detention centre where he was "interrogated for several days, asked the most personal questions" about his sex life.
"I
“I did it for the uplift of humanity and the Navy”: FDR's Gay Sex-Entrapment Sting
Sherry Zane sheds light on a adj covert operation that targeted homosexual Navy men.
BeeLine Reader uses subtle color gradients to help you scan more efficiently.
On March 16, , 14 Navy recruits met secretly at the naval hospital in Newport, Rhode Island, anxiously awaiting instructions for their brand-new assignment. The senior operatives explained that the volunteers were free to abandon if they objected to this special mission: a covert operation to entrap homosexual men under the authority of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI).
By the end of the sting, investigators had apprehended more than 20 accused sailors and imprisoned them aboard a broken-down ship in Newport harbor. Anxious and afraid, the suspects remained in solitary confinement for nearly four months before they were officially charged with sodomy and &#;scandalous conduct.&#; The incident also foreshadowed laws and policies that the future President Roosevelt would put i
Pride Month - Exploring LGBTQ+ history in the Royal Navy
The Queer and Now
For three hundred and ten years the Royal Navy hunted down, persecuted and sometimes even hanged homosexuals found within their ranks. Execution ceased after , but life imprisonment remained a reality. The partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in did little to sway the opinion of the Armed Forces, and it was not until that real change was made.
The Royal Navy were not alone in their persecution of homosexuals, or indeed anybody else from within the LGBTQ+ community, but for some there is still the image that they promote an aggressive, macho, alpha-male stereotype.
However, over the past twenty-three years, the Royal Navy has become a beacon of progress and acceptance. In a statement on their website in January , the Royal Navy wanted to send a obvious message: “the Naval Service welcomes all talent to its ranks, regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identity” – a far cry from the “gay panic” that gripped Naval officials just forty years previous.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the