This belongs under the header "Things the US should learn from other countries". From today's New York Times (bolds mine):
February 10, 2001
Gays in the British Military: Ask, Tell and
Then Move On
By SARAH LYALL
LYMOUTH, England —
For the last year it has been
perfectly legal for Chief Petty
Officer Rob Nunn, who is openly
gay, to serve in the Royal Navy.
But there have inevitably been
awkward moments, like the time
someone jokingly asked, using
slang for homosexual, why he was
"standing around like a poof."
"The senior guy who was there
said, `That's probably because he
is one,' " recalled Petty Officer
Nunn, 45, who in 1992 was
discharged from the navy for being
gay, but who re- enlisted last year
after the military lifted its ban on
gays. "I didn't mind — I'm not at
all P.C. — but the guy was
mortified. He spent the next month
apologizing."
For many of the submariners
stationed at his base in Cornwall, near Plymouth, Petty Officer Nunn is
the first gay person they have ever knowingly met, and certainly the first
in a navy uniform. But what is perhaps most surprising about his presence
here is how little disruption it has caused, even among the aggressively
heterosexual men he serves with.
"When you're locked in a tin for months and months at a time, you have
to really get along, and it's easy to think gays would disrupt that," said
Chief Petty Officer Andrew Reid, a friend of Petty Officer Nunn's. "We
thought Bob would be a catalyst for trouble and discord. But since I met
Bob, my whole outlook's changed. He's just a bloke like the rest of us."
It would be hard to overstate how surprising such a response has been in
the British military, whose rationale until last year was much the same as
that of the uneasy American "don't ask, don't tell" policy adopted under
President Bill Clinton. The existence of openly gay personnel in the ranks,
the argument went, would weaken morale and foment division by leading
to gay cliques and provoking antigay prejudice and violence from
heterosexuals.
"Homosexual behavior can cause offense, polarize relationships, induce ill
discipline and, as a consequence, damage morale and unit effectiveness,"
the British Defense Ministry said then in its guidelines on the subject.
But contrary to most expectations, Petty Officer Nunn's experience
seems to be the rule rather than the exception in Britain's newly inclusive
military. Even the Defense Ministry, which fought hard to keep gays out,
has acknowledged an unexpectedly smooth transition. In a report last fall,
it said there had been "widespread acceptance of the new policy" and
"no reported difficulties of note concerning homophobic behavior" among
service personnel.
"Before the lifting of the ban, many senior officials predicted that military
performance would suffer," said Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for
the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, which recently published a report about the
British experience. "But we found that there has been no problem in
terms of morale or discipline or recruitment."
Interviews with current and former members of the armed forces and
with military officials and academic experts tell a similar story: at least so
far, the presence of openly gay personnel has caused minimal disruption.
"At a personal level it's been absolutely fine," said Lt. Cmdr. Michael
Griffiths, 37, a Royal Navy warfare officer who is gay. "Among the
people I'm living and working with, it does not appear to have caused
any problem at all."
And Claire Clarke, an air force electronics
technician who is straight, said the presence of an openly gay man in her
unit had not been an issue, except perhaps to stifle traditional military
jokes about the feebleness of others.
"People think they have to be a little more careful with jokes, with ribbing
someone by saying, `Oh, you big girl's blouse,' " Technician Clarke said,
using a British term for wimp.
"For the first week or so people edited what they said around Andy, but
then it became obvious that he didn't mind if we said, `Oh, you great big
girl,' " she added. "I would lift things and say, `I'm more of a man than
you are.' He'd take them as the lighthearted jokes they were."
The government never kept count of how many people were discharged
when its ban was in place, but campaigners for gay rights estimate that as
many as 4,000 people have been forced to leave over the years. (There
are now about 205,000 people serving in the British armed forces.)
Before the policy changed, people suspected of being gay were often
investigated in elaborate operations that could include surveillance,
interviews with friends and acquaintances, interrogations and searches of
personal items.
"Targeting and uncovering homosexuality was a large part of what the
military did," said Edmund Hall, a broadcaster who wrote "We Can't
Even March Straight: Homosexuality in the British Armed Forces," after
being discharged from the navy in 1988 for saying he was gay.
Despite the hard-line stance — and despite a 1996 survey in which a
majority of personnel said they did not want to serve with gays — it was
clear by the mid-1990's that change was in the air. In 1998, four highly
decorated gays who had sued the government after being discharged
won their case when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the
antigay policy violated the fundamental right to privacy.
The government officially scrapped the ban in January 2000, bringing its
policy on gays in line with that of most NATO countries, including
France, Germany and Canada.
In contrast, the policy fashioned for the American military under
President Clinton was not so much a lifting of the ban as a studied and
often stilted avoidance of the issue. Gays are allowed to serve, as long as
they keep their sexual orientation secret and do not engage in
homosexual acts.
In practice, the policy has been confusing and difficult to enforce.
Advocates for gay men and lesbians in uniform have complained that
there is still widespread harassment in the ranks and, in the worst cases,
violence. In response to the 1999 bludgeoning death of an Army private
suspected of being gay, the American military ordered new training to
explain the policy more clearly to personnel.
Since Britain lifted the ban, its military says, there have been no reported
incidents of harassment.
In announcing the changes here, the military issued a new code of
conduct that applies to heterosexual as well as homosexual relationships.
It stresses that harassment will not be tolerated, but also emphasizes that
sexuality is a private matter and that offensive or overly demonstrative
behavior is inappropriate in the armed forces.
The new code is meant to make it clear that the service role is all
important, said a senior military official. "The criterion we use is, has the
behavior of the person brought the service into disrepute?" he said.
As far as gays go, "our policy is that it's not an
issue," he said, adding: "Officially, whatever side a person bats for, it's all
the same. But people have to respect other people's orientation and be
discreet."
If the United States policy is "don't ask, don't tell," said Christopher
Dandeker, who heads the war studies department at Kings College
London, Britain's can be described as "don't fear it, don't flaunt it."
"The crucial thing for gay personnel is that they have to be service
personnel first and gay second," said Professor Dandeker, who teaches
military sociology. "The team comes first. They are not to let their own
sexual identity undermine the service identity."
The real test, he said, will come when more people enter the service and
undergo training as openly gay personnel, and when gays come out in
army combat units and other traditionally macho areas. "Just because
there are no problems now does not mean there are none to come," he
said.
And even in the newly relaxed climate, it seems that relatively few gays
have publicly come out so far. Others have come out only to select
groups of friends.
"Even though the ban's been lifted, some people aren't entirely happy
about it," said a lesbian who is a captain in the Royal Army and who
asked that her name not be used because she has not come out fully at
work. She has some 100 people under her command, she said, but has
revealed her sexuality only to a handful of people she trusts — including,
recently, her commanding officer.
"The other day, she asked me what my boyfriend does," the captain said.
"I said, `I don't exactly have a boyfriend, but I've been seeing someone
for four years now.' She was very polite about it, not nasty or overly
inquisitive, and she said, `Well, whatever makes you happy.' "
It helps, experts say, that people who have come out so far are already
well established in their careers and respected by their colleagues.
Petty Officer Nunn, who has spent more than 20 years in the navy —
during which he got married, had a child and left his wife after he realized
he was gay — certainly fits that description. But even he takes care not
to flaunt his sexuality, and has not yet introduced his partner to his
friends.
"My private life has never been embroiled in my working life," he said. "If
I'm asked, I'll answer, but I don't walk around with a big flag saying, `I'm
gay.' "
That's not to say that his friends don't tease him mercilessly — and that
he doesn't tease them back — in classic naval humor that involves
homing in on one another's vulnerable spots and pounding them into the
ground.
At Christmas, for instance, each person in the mess gives a gift, after
drawing the recipient's name out of a hat. This year, Petty Officer Nunn
got a tiara and a fairy wand. "The mess was determined to get me to say
`fairy lights,' " he recalled, using the usual British term for Christmas lights.
"But I kept saying `sparkly lights' and `bright lights.' "
By the same token, his friend Petty Officer Reid, whose wife recently left
him, got a pack of condoms and a book of pickup lines.
Petty Officer Nunn's friends ask him questions about what it is like to be
gay, of course. But mostly they marvel that a gay man can be so similar
to them, joining so enthusiastically in their pointed humor and
hard-drinking weekend social life.
"Most people would think of a homosexual as an effete person," said
Chief Petty Officer Nigel Crocker. "But he's not, and that's why he's so
accepted."
Some people on the base still don't know about Petty Officer Nunn's
sexuality. But when they ask questions, his friends are the first to defend
him.
"We're quite a close-knit group, so nobody would be able to say
anything negative to us," said Petty Office Reid. "If we were out and
someone said, `Bob Nunn's a big poof,' we'd say, `He is, but so what?' " |
