Episode 14: Military Gays - Part 2

The U.S. military has asked queer people to serve for generations, and then punished them for existing. We pull that thread from World War II forward, starting with the horrifying reality of “queer stockades,” where service members are interrogated about their sex lives, coerced into naming names, and subjected to humiliation, isolation, and outright abuse. It’s history that makes your stomach turn, and it explains a lot about why silence felt safer than honesty for so long.

Then we hit Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the political compromise that still cost careers and lives, including the murders of Alan Schindler and Barry Winchell. We end with repeal, visible firsts, the slow restoration of benefits, and why staying vigilant matters when today’s leaders talk about rolling back “woke military” policies. 

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Quick Recap

SPEAKER_03 0:01

All right. So welcome back. It's been about two weeks for you guys and about five minutes for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Um we have readjusted.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Uh we went to the bathroom. Got ourselves all settled in. Yeah. Again. Um I think I need this book again. Seriously though, if you want to borrow this, it's fantastic. There's so much detail in this book. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Okay. As you can see by all my tabs. I can see all of the tabs. Show them the tabs. You hear that?

SPEAKER_03 0:36

It's amazing. Oh, and then there's these.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Hey my doodle dandies. This is Kelsey, and I'm Sarah. And we're that's so macaroni. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

As just a quick recap for everyone except for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Um, I want to be included.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Sarah, I know that you have the memory of a goldfish. So long, long ago, in a time before time, aka the 1600s, we as a country had said, no sodomy, but stuff makes us feel uncomfortable because it gives us feelings. And you can fuck an animal only for procreation. Maybe you can fuck an animal, but not in the bud. Not in the bud, yeah. Uh, but I also did not look too far into that because I was like, ew, you know what? That does make me uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Um that would put you on a rabbit hole. That would, I think your like FBI agent that monitors your shit would be like, uh oh. They're already very confused.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

So what the fuck? Um, what are you doing? Um okay, so no butt stuff. Sex is for babies only. And then the 1920s come around and they're like, actually, we have a lot of disposable income and we're in different places now. So we're gonna go ahead and do whatever we want to with whomever we want to, and drink all of the illegal alcohol. And drink all the illegal alcohol and listen to jazz. So get bent. Um, the military is like, hey, there's a lot of people with shell shock. We should probably try to rule out people who might be susceptible to shell shock before they become our problem. Um and they go, okay, cool, we can help you with that. Uh Sullivan and Overholster are like, we can do that. Um, and they're like, military is like, shouldn't it include gay people? And they're like, um, no. And they're like, we're gonna make it include gay people, except for sometimes, because right now we kind of need anybody. The torpedo officer and his amazing hairnet, um, the drag performer who got a letter of commendation and performed like on the front for entertainment relief for soldiers. They're like, woo-hoo! And then there's always the other side of that because it can't be all rainbows and sunshine all the time. I wish it was. Me too.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I like rainbows. Me too. My hair was a rainbow once. Yeah, I loved it. I I have a rainbow. You do have a rainbow.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Oh my god! It's a rainbow! And funny enough, we started doing videos for our hair person.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah. That's it. They were like, they were like YouTube, and we were like, okay. This is but I think This is like free advertisement for them.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Um, I was gonna say though, I bet that I bet that they just wanted us to do that so that we could show off our hair. And people be like, where do you go? And we'll have to be like, oh listen, we go to Joe. And yeah, and then people are like, we need Joe! And then Joe is now like hairstylist to the stars. That was their plan all along. Don't leave us. Um okay, so now

Inside The Queer Stockades

SPEAKER_03 3:50

we get to what I had said was the queer stockades. Yes. Do you remember that? So that's where we left off. Was that I was gonna tell you something really bad and then we cut.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

See, my brain goes to stockades. Um, you know what I'm talking about? That's a stockade, right? Yeah. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I'm not used to this.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Um, yeah, with with the head and armholes.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, and then you could like throw tomatoes at them. Yeah.

unknown 4:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

So, um, anyways, they are just as bad as you think they are.

unknown 4:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

They were interrogated about their sex lives. Sometimes they would do like a good cop, bad cop routine to get GIs to name other men, um, gay men that they knew. One GI reported that the judge advocate had said that he would stick him with criminal charges if he didn't cooperate. They took a break from interrogating, and the lieutenant was like, puts his arm around him and is like, hey man, I think it's for the good of the service if you just get out. And he's like, really? Like, I mean, I guess if you think that's for the best, like, I don't want to hurt my country because he's a patriotic man. He's like, Oh, I don't want to do anything that would harm my country. I guess, um, I guess so. And the GI was assured that if he told them who he had been with, that nothing would happen to those men. And he goes, Okay. Who said this? Who was doing this? This was a good cop, bad cop routine. So the lieutenant and was like, Don't worry, you tell us who you've been with, and nothing bad will happen to them. No, and he was like, Okay, promise. And they're like, We promise. No, fingers are crossed behind their back. That's like and then this was this is the worst part. So, um, so the judge advocate, so he tells them and he says, These are the guys, and the judge advocate goes, For Christ's sake, I didn't think he'd break. And those men were obviously rounded up, interrogated, and discharged.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

But like it was just so heartbreaking because he was like, like he was like, I didn't want to hurt anybody. He thought that he was doing something that would like help his country. Um, and sometimes they just asked increasingly violating questions. Sounds about right. Um, so one whack or women army corps woman, they would just call them whacks. Um, and I haven't talked a lot about them because, like I said, women were generally allowed to be more affectionate towards each other, so it was a little bit harder to tell, and they just didn't really fucking care as much. Um she was interrogated. She was asked to describe when her and her partner made love, if they touched each other's genitals, and how she was given pleasure by her partner.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

These were just horny men.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Well, the one thing. Yeah. Once they started asking these um sexual questions, they brought in a woman to help interrogate.

unknown 6:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Um, so yeah, they're just like increasingly just violating questions. And she was also tricked into naming other people because that's what they did. Um, in both these cases, um, the person was told that it was for the good of the service if they confessed and removed themselves and others from the service, despite clear evidence of the opposite in combat and scientific studies. From evidence obtained um by psychiatrists in wartime research, they came to believe that gay men and women were neither rarities, criminals, nor military threats. Um and in gay stockades, they were also subjected to public humiliation. Some of the interrogations took place when the suspect was naked and standing on a block in front of a panel of colonels and majors. So they would ask him these horrible questions while he's standing there completely naked. Um, they were locked up, often in isolation, and only allowed out to do a work detail if they were allowed out at all. The men would be separated from other inmates no matter what. They had like the gay block.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

This is just gonna be my face for the rest of I think that's I think that's appropriate.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Um I understand. Um, so they would be separated no matter what from other prisoners. They used to have to wear a um yellow D on their person for degenerate. Oh, I was for dick lover.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Is it D for dick? This man likes dick. Yes. Oh my god. Hold on. ADHD moment. Did I take my myth?

SPEAKER_03 8:17

No.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

No, I did not.

SPEAKER_03 8:19

Um they have to wear some they used to have to wear yellow D to identify them as different. They were separated. Jesus Christ, I will get through this. And then sometimes they're further isolated into solitary confinement cells. If there wasn't a way to have individual cells, they would be forced to have the lights on and 24-hour guards so that you couldn't sleep in like there was no dark time. Why? To make sure that you weren't gonna do anything, no funny business with your fellow inmates. Still douche with the lights on. That's that's actually called like psychological torture. It is. It's against the Geneva Convention. Like you have this is inappropriate.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

But also, the lights on isn't gonna stop me from doing stuff if I really want to. They will stop you sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Um God, there's so much keep your keep your disgusted face on. Um they would also in these gay stockades sometimes be physically and sexually abused. Isn't that hold on. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. One man remembers he was shoved on a truck with other inmates, and two Marines jumped on to guard them, aiming their guns at them the whole time. When they arrived to their destination, a lieutenant there asked why they didn't just quote shoot the motherfuckers. Why didn't you just kill them? Then there are two stories that are exactly alike. One is from one is stateside and one was in the Pacific. These two men share that guards would come by, take some of the inmates out to get blowjobs from them, and share them with friends. Then they would throw these poor men back in the cells and continue to guard them. I'll wait for you to process that.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Super fucked up.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

I really wish this Hold on.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

Oh my god, what?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Hold on.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

I'm so scared. What are you doing? I guess I'll just wait. I don't know what about this story sparked some sort of memory for her, and I'm a little bit concerned about what she's gonna come back out with. What are you doing?

SPEAKER_05 10:21

If you're gonna make me listen to upsetting things. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

Thank you. No, dude, I was literally, I was telling the camera while you were gone. I was like, I don't know what about this disgusting story made her like run away, like to go get something, but I'm afraid to see what she comes back with.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Uh yes. It's only 11:30.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

I have to clean my house today.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

This will help you. Yeah. Okay, disgusting men shit. Got it.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Okay. Approximately 10,000 service members were put into these queer stockades, and a majority of them were men. I don't talk a lot about women because a lot of these things happen to men. So I just want like, were um lesbian and trans people like also targeted?

SPEAKER_05 11:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Yes. But a lot of this happened to men. So that's kind of why they are such a.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Well, yeah, because I mean, like, that's like the the stigma is like gay is gross if it's men. But like if it's two women making out on the street.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Yeah, it's very um misogynistic.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Yeah, it's gross.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah. Now do you see why I ran into the other room?

SPEAKER_03 11:41

Not an ad, but uh but delicious red apple cider for adults is delicious. It helps um I'm sorry, to make a really gross blurpy noise.

Hospitals Versus Punitive Detention

unknown 11:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Okay, good leave. All right. Um surprisingly, the psychiatric hospitals were not as bad treatment-wise. Most people were allowed regular freedoms, they could go off the grounds, they were even able to get together for sexy time. There were locked wards um where they weren't allowed to leave um and were actually locked up sometimes with like disturbed patients or prisoners of war. And the prisoners of war, they said we're not that bad.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

They hung out with Germans and Italians and they were like, Yeah, because they're all like in there together now trying to survive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

I think part of what made it a little bit easier was that psychiatrists were generally there to be helpful. That doesn't mean that they always were, but they their goal was to be helpful.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Um I can also imagine, too, um like this being during World War II, like the mental experiments, like research that's also being done.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Yeah, they're they're exploring this, and I think that a lot of it, like, although it's sometimes misguided and wrong, what they're trying to do is like scientific research. And actually, what comes out of this is um a lot of the psych psychiatrists were like, yeah, we did a bunch of research, and turns out that they're perfectly fucking normal, and um, you should stop treating them like shit. So, like, yeah, it is what comes out of this, they're like, is is actually good. They're like, Are you guys sexual psychopaths? We're like, Well, fuck you! No, and they're like, Oh, well, we've learned something, take notes.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

So I think that that's part of what made this not so bad, whereas the their gay stockades were like punitive, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

And it's like literally the stockades were like meant to shame and torture, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

Yeah, yeah. So at the beginning of all this, doctors didn't want homosexuality to be included in the elimination criteria for the military. Um, many said, like, hey, at worst, gay people are just sick, but they're not like contagious or bad or different. They just have a mental disease, which is not right, but it's also they're developing. Okay, yeah, they're growing. Um so at least they weren't threatening to shoot them and humiliating them. Uh, they cared for their mental well-being, whereas the queer stockades did not. Right. Um, so what to do

Blue Discharges And Civilian Fallout

SPEAKER_03 14:25

with these men and women when they are done with their stay in either prison or hospital? What did they do with them when they didn't want the to go through the hassle of sending them to either place? Well, the military came up with a new discharge for them called a blue discharge or a administrative discharge. Um, blue discharge feels like something you shouldn't Google. And I don't know if I don't know if this is just because this is my Google now, but they it's like, do you mean from the military? And I'm like, oh, we're not gonna come up with anything gross. It kind of does, but luckily it's not the fourth.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Is it the um the blue waffle? The blue waffle, yeah.

unknown 15:02

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Millennial trauma shit. All right. So blue discharges are a type of administrative discharge. They came from section eight of Army Regulation uh 615-360, which permitted the discharge of men with undesirable habits or traits of character. Enlisted men called the uh nickname these discharges as blue discharges or blue tickets because they were printed on blue paper. Not necessarily creative, but um also sidebar.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Uh if anyone does have blue discharge, please go see a medical professional. Go to the doctor.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

If you're wondering if that's normal, no, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

It is not. Alright, continue.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

Um, oh yeah, I did. Okay, I'm I don't know if I said it or not, because I just, like I said, rampled. Um psychiatrists called homosexuals sexual psychopaths.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Right. Yeah, you said that last time. Um is this time? I don't remember. You said it. I said it.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Uh a sexual psychopath was a category of criminals roughly defined as male sex offenders who had little to no control over their sexual impulses. Um, a psychopath lacks empathy, has shallow emotions, and exhibits impulsive manipulative behaviors. Um none of this is universally true for LGBTQ folks, but it came around because of the previous understanding of sodomy and bullshit about it being against nature. Like, could gay people fit this? Sure. Jeffrey Dahmer. Like, we have seen it happen. However, it is not a defining characteristic of if you were um part of the alphabet militia. Yeah, yeah. You should be embarrassed. You should be ashamed of yourself.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Listen, I'm bringing the 70s back, bitch.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

I'm dancing to the song in my head, sorry. Um, okay. Quote, based on the belief that homosexuality was a mental illness, it provided for discharge without trial of homosexual personnel, while allowing the retention of those whose service was deemed central. The discharge system, ironically, greatly expanded the military's anti-homosexual apparatus. End quote. Okay, so because military officials were able to connect homosexual homosexuality to a psychopathy, it was easy for them to dismiss quiz queer servicemen and women without court-martial and without giving them an honorable discharge uh whenever it suited them. Okay. Um there's a lot of problems with classifying gay people because sometimes it would be in their best interest of whatever branch of the military to keep a gay person. So they would have to kind of rate them on which was worst to best and who can be saved. Uh, in the interest of time, I'm not gonna go through all of them. If you're interested, coming out under fire by Alan Buru. He goes into great detail about all of it.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Saved.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Yeah. Which is a great movie, by the way. So speaking of queer people being saved, saved is a great movie.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Mary, I'm on a Vespa, and I'm aorable.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

Sorry. Okay, there are two that I want to mention. Um, because I find they are opposite ends of the spectrum, and I find them interesting. So the first is the casual homosexual, the one who's only gay on weekends and at social gatherings.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Um It's kind of like you know, how you only have a cigarette when you're drinking.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

That's exactly what I thought of. Mm-hmm. Like, oh, I only drink at parties, I only drink at just on the weekends.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

I'm only gay on the weekends.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

Yes. So seriously, though, it was it was just it was a straight man who had like a little twist. Okay. He just had like a little fling. So he's bisexual. Yes. Okay, got it. Or maybe he was just like, am I? And he tried it and he goes, not for me. But either way, he's casual. Casually gay.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

All right, got it, got it, okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

And then there's the opposite end, which is the criminal sodomist category. And this is anyone who has forced his same-sex partner into sexual acts or had sex with minor. Like that's just always a fucking crime. A sex with a a minor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

What does that have? Are they lumping pedophiles in with homosexuals?

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Yes. Gross. I hate it here. Okay. Which is another huge problem, which I again, I like I feel bad because I feel like I'm like glossing over some things. But like it's not intentional. It's just like the last section was already an hour and a half, and I didn't even dig deep into shit.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

You know, and this is like specifically for like Pride Month. We're not like excluding, you know, people of color or anything like that just to be dicks. We're just like, it is Pride Month, and we would like to make people more aware of like Pride history. Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

And I really wanted to cover um a really broad expanse of time. So I'm I'm really doing my best. Like I said, last episode, if there's something that you're like, what? Tell me more about this, I would I'm happy to do that. Um, it's just not this episode. So yeah, Criminal Sodomists, which is actually just a fucking criminal.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Like a rapist.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Yeah, it's just a rapist. Yeah. But they lumped them all in together. So, all in all, this discharge system is more harmful to queer service folk because instead of having to be caught engaging in a sex act, simply being queer was enough. Okay. Um quote, ironically, the very fact that psychiatrists fought so hard to bring about a more humane military system for handling homosexuals only added to the notion that gay men and women belonged within the domain of abnormal psychiatry.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:43

So because psychiatrists were like, hey, they're not like, they're not criminals. It's what they are is like different, like they have a different sort of like the way their brain works is different. And the military was like, so you mean they're all psychopaths? And and psychiatrists are like, we're not saying that. We're like, well, they have to be abnormal. This brain belongs to somebody named Abby Normal. You've seen me in Frankenstein. Okay, great. I can love that movie. Ugh. Um, I don't know, someone named Abby Normal. An abnormal brain. Anyways, this was not only used for queer service members, it was also disproportionately used as a way to discharge black soldiers. Quote, of the 48,603 blue discharges issued by the army between December 1st, 1941 and June 30th, 1945, 10,806 were issued to African Americans, or about 22% of all blue blue discharges, where African Americans constituted only 6.5% of the military at the time.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

So you're discharging like all of them.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Um I think I go into this. Yes, yes, okay, I do. I want to tell because it's really important. Important to know why blue discharges and administrative discharges are such BS. So there was such an outcry that the military stopped issuing blue discharges in 1947 and started calling them other than honorable. They still held all the same consequences, but they called them other-than-honorable discharges, as opposed to, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

A dishonorable discharge.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

So it's it isn't in between. The blue discharge and other than honorable, they basically just changed the fucking name. It doesn't change anything. So an honorable discharge is like, thank you for your service, have a good time, you have VA benefits. A dishonorable is like, hey, you're a fucking dick and we hate you, go away. And then they're like, well, what do we do about the people in between? Well, we'll call them other than honorable, which just means that um a lot of times it was like you have an undesirable characteristic or trait about you that the military was like, ew, we poo-poo it. Um, which also is really hard to get a job. I'll go into it.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Um, okay. So it's very um well, I guess that makes sense though, because what this is World War II. I was gonna say that's very um eugenics of the military, picking and choosing. Um, and I would love to do an episode on eugenics. Did you ever read the paper I wrote in college? In college I did, which was forever and ever ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

I'm pretty sure I had me proofread it for you.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Oh, yeah, that's right. Thank you. You're welcome. Got an A on it, so um, yeah, it's very picky choosy. Always is. Yeah, which makes sense for World War II because the eugenics of it all. Okay, yeah, got it.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Um in 1947, President Truman passed an executive order to establish a loyalty program for federal employees, and anyone quote seen as displaying immoral or dis or disgraceful conduct was a target. But when I hear like loyalty program, I think punch card. You know? Like, like, are you part of our loyalty program? Oh, you get points, and so like I would be super excited at first. I'd be like, oh my gosh, I am so loyal, hardly a sick day, always on time. I'm gonna get a free coffee. And then I go in there and then realize that Mike from the Treasury Department was laid off because he has a boyfriend. And I'd be like, What? No coffee and no Mike? Mike was the best part. I always made the best coffee. And anyway, so yeah, I'd be super disappointed.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

He put just like a little bit of cinnamon in it and it was perfect.

unknown 24:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

So thoughtful. Yeah, so when I hear loyalty program, that's not what I think.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Um, yeah, I I get yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah. Here we go.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

This is where I wrote it. So the stigma around blue discharges also stuck around and plagued uh these veterans in their civilian lives. One of the more directly vindictive punishments was that these veterans were denied their GI benefits.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Oh, gross. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Yep. They would have no health benefits, no unemployment assistance, job assistance, housing assistance, or educational stipends. Nothing. And it even kind of went like worse after that. So jobs after the war, I had said last time about queer people's draft papers being available. Well, so were their discharges. You had to make that like like it's like when you know when you apply for a job and they say, Were you a veteran? Why were you discharged? They get to see that. So they would see these um discharge papers saying that this person was an undesirable and it's a huge stain when you're looking for a job. Um so not to mention that, but like civilian life is also getting super hostile with McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare.

Lavender Scare And Federal Crackdowns

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

The 1950s. Very briefly, McCarthyism was a part of an overarching fear of communism known as the Cold War and the Red Scare. The Red Scare. Um it reached the height of its insanity between 1950 and 1954 when Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin launched a series of highly publicized probes into the quote unquote communist penetration of government departments. They're really obsessed with penetrating.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

But it's not gay though.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Not in a gay way, though.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Not in a gay way.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Yeah. Yeah. Penetrating. But not gay. Anyways, um, people everywhere were just trying to do the regular American thing. They would just like bebop around and wear their poodle skirts, and they are normal. Um, so as to not be called communists by their neighbors. And people were absolutely turning on each other, being like, they're communists, yeah, they're gay. So part of the red scare is what's called the lavender scare, in which being queer was, again, and always demonized dangerous and demonized. The lavender scare started in the late 1940s for a couple reasons. One was Alfred Kinsey, um, he was a really famous sexologist. Lots of really good insight because he and his wife actually studied um sexual behaviors of humans.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Okay. Um he posted. On his Facebook, he posted. Um in 1940, what did you say? 48. He published a written book um called The Sexual Behavior of the Human Male. It became a bestseller and it drew attention for its claim that same-sex experiences were relatively common and normal. Um, also, the science speak of it connect and the connection to psychopathy, like paired together. So last time I mentioned, now we were like, ah, science. Yes, and now it's homosexuality, it's part of uh a psychopathy. Um so they kind of like partner that. Yeah. But the nation is just coming out of a lot of like horrific sex crimes. I think Albert Fisch. And he was a sexual psychopath.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Yes, he was. He was in Germany.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

No, he was in Germany.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

He was here, he was German.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

But he was here, yeah. And that connection is made in the minds because if you you're calling them both sexual psychopaths. So they connect people like Albert Fish.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah, who is an actual criminal murderer with homosexuality. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Yeah. So they you put them in the same category, and people then relate that together. Yeah, exactly. So um, that's inevitable, and you can I mean, that's just how the human brain works. You call them the same thing, you assume it's the same fucking thing. A top intelligence officer had reportedly told McCarthy that, quote, practically every active communist is twisted mentally or physically in some way. McCarthy implied that gay men were also susceptible to communist recruitment because as homosexuals, they had what he called particular mental twists. So gay people are more prone to be communists. Prone to be communists because they're all twisty in the brain. Um just over a week later, after that, Deputy Under Secretary of State John Pierfoy, testifying before a subcommittee of the Senate, excuse me, um, of the Senate Committee of Appropriations revealed that the State Department had ousted 91 homosexual employees as security risks. Sure. Because their mental twisties are the same as a communist mental twisty. Sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Sure, yeah, sure. Sure. I'm just gonna say, sure, sure, sure, yeah. Okay, okay, friend.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

All right.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

Uh okay, 1951, the Uniform Code of Military Justice was created, and it codified the ban on homosexuality in the armed forces, stating, quote, unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex was an offense that could merit court martial. It was almost exclusively used against gays and lesbians. So unnatural being things that don't produce denis. So no butt stuff. No butt stuff!

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Did you hear that? No butt stuff. Or mouth stuff. What about ear stuff?

SPEAKER_03 29:59

We didn't think we were gonna have to tell you not to do that, but please don't. Okay, then comes executive order um 10450. Well 10450, which is annoying. Um, signed in April 1953, which prohibits federal employees from being members of a group that uh considers subversive, and evidently being gay is a security risk. So if you are gay, you are more likely to just leak secrets. I mean, gays have the best tea.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Let's be real here.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

I mean, I remember growing up with a queer sibling, and they also couldn't keep their fucking mouth shut. Um if they're saying that sorry, not sorry.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

I mean, not to like throw stereotypes out there.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Just saying.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

I mean, like, let's be real here. This man right here would tell his entire life story within first five minutes of meeting somebody.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

So I don't think that he wouldn't give away like state secrets. Like there's also there's also like discretion. I felt when we were growing up, I felt like my state secrets were being given away because I was doing a lot of criminal activity. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Statute of limitations, it's fine. Um so around this time, 1953, the forgotten war. Do you know what happened what war was happening in the 50s? Cold war? No, that was. Cool, I'm super excited for the sidebar. So Cold War is an overarching.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

That was the 60s. It was like a nuclear that was a whole thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

The 50s to the 90s when the fall of the Soviet Union. It was basically like democracy, capitalism against communism. But then we didn't directly fight with the USSR, but we had a lot of proxy wars. Which proxy war was happening in the 1950s?

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Korea. Boom! Hell yeah. Yes. I didn't know there was gonna be a quiz, but I was like, Technically, there's not.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

I just get excited.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Um, so I had to think really hard. I was like, wait, hold on. It's because Vietnam

Korea On The Ground Reality

SPEAKER_01 32:00

was the 60s and 70s, so I was like, which war it was? I was like going through all of them in my head.

SPEAKER_05 32:06

Korea.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Korea. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

Korea! Um so for this part, I borrowed a book from our library that is called Ask and Tell by Steve Estes. And it has interviews with veterans of wars from the Korean War through like the Afghan and Iraqi conflict. Um he gives like a little bit of detail. What?

SPEAKER_01 32:27

That was weirda. What? I like nodded my head in agreement with you, and then like a fucking thumbs down popped up on the screen.

SPEAKER_05 32:39

No. Don't hurt yourself.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

What the fuck? Okay, sorry. That just ripped me up. I was like, why is there a thumbs down? Okay. That's mean. If I do this, will it a hero? Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

Are you ready? Uh-huh. Okay. So, um, interviews. Some of the details from here on out will be first hand accounts from these people, like from the interviews.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Um, so you know more. Once on the ground. I know? Nope. Korea. Thank you. The Korean War. Um, once on the ground, men seemed to care less about who a guy was fucking so long as he didn't get him killed. Okay. Do your job. Thank you. Um, and if someone can do their job well, especially in a high stress environment like war, uh, a lot of the other stuff kind of just like fades in the background. Yeah. Additionally, at this point, GIs still think that you can't get an STI from gay sex because literally no one told them they could, and this is before the AIDS epidemic. So I think, like I said last time, to avoid STIs, heterosexuals identi heterosexual identifying soldiers would have sex with their queer comrades to blow off steam.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Isn't that crazy though? Because most men are carriers of STIs and they show no symptoms whatsoever.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

That is correct.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

That's fucking banana.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

Because the only thing that they were being shown was that if like it's a venereal disease. They're saying, oh, this is a lady problem. It is vaginas are disgusting. But gay sex is also disgusting. So who the f- What are you who are you supposed to fuck? This is why, this is why they're like also no BCLity. They're like, who now? God.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

That's why they make dolls now.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

Okay. Um, all right, so the military apparatus does care. Soldiers and sailors might not, but the military people do. Okay. Um, because Congress says that they should care, so the military cares. Okay. Quote the number of undesirable discharges for gay sailors during the years of the Korean conflict uh were 483 in 1950 and 533 in 1951. Undesirable is that other than honorable or the blue discharge. Okay. Yeah. Um were less so those discharges were less than half of the number the year after the Armand Sense was signed, which was um 1,353. So during the time of war, um 483, 533. Like that's how many people were discharged after they ended the war, over 1,300 people were discharged. Okay. Because they weren't needed anymore. Um and that number would not fall below 500 a year again until 1970 when the Vietnam War was really getting ramped up.

unknown 35:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

So they would continue any um queer services.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yes unless they needed them.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Correct. Yeah. Unless it was beneficial. So but here's some slightly good news.

unknown 35:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

Uh in 1957, after the height what?

SPEAKER_00 35:47

You know what 1957 was?

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Tim's birth year. Happy birthday to Timothy. After the height of the insanity of the lavender scare and McCarthyism, Captain S. H. Crittenden, uh chair of a US Navy Board of Inquiry, that issues a report concluding, quote, there is no sound basis for the belief that homosexuals posed a security risk. Keshda. Um it was called the Crittenden Report. Um you can look it up, it goes into great detail. Um but he was like, actually, gay people are fine.

Early Organizing And Legal Milestones

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Um but they also just go, ooh, we don't really like that answer though. So despite all of the evidence. Anyways, it doesn't go with what we think. Um and there's another rainbow amongst the storm. In 1950, a group of five men came together to form a secret group called the Fifth Order, which would ultimately become a large-scale queer organization called the Matashin Society. Their goal?

SPEAKER_01 36:46

That's a fancy name.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

I know.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

Uh their goal was to unify homosexuals and to erase our law from our law books the discriminatory and oppressive legislation written against them. Although conservative leaders started to take over on the west coast of the Metashine Society in the early 1960s, a US Army veteran Frank Kimene founded the Metashine Society of I and I hope I'm saying that right. I have no idea. Matashin? Matashine? Matashin? Anyways. Um of Washington, DC. And they characterize themselves within the movement as an activist militant organization, sharing the importance of active civil engagement and protesting. Okay. Um Frank Kemeni comes up a whole bunch of times from here on out. He was actually so he was like really a big propon proponent and active um guy in civil rights for um queer folk, especially veterans, because he was a queer veteran. Uh he was given one of those lovely blue discharges, and so he was barred from any of the benefits um from getting work after risking his life to serve his country. And he stated that he was fucking over it. This is this is beautiful. By that time, I had decided that basically what this amounted to was a declaration of war against me by my government. A, I don't grant my government the right to declare war against me, and B, I tend not to lose my wars.

SPEAKER_05 38:13

Good for him.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Snaps for Frank. He's like, What you want to fight, bitch? Try me. I don't lose.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Eek! Okay. Look at my military history.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

Yeah, okay, Frank, you're scary. I love it. There's also a lesbian organization at the time called the Daughters of Bilitus. Um, they were equally politically engaged and often had veterans among their ranks as well. Couldn't find a whole bunch on this, like super readily. Um, but it was founded by as a private s social club uh for lesbians by working women of color. They had a publication called The Ladder, and you can still find that online. Um magazine that talked about how to protect yourself and how to stand up to injustice. Nice. I love it. Um, and I think the Matachine Society, they also had a magazine called One, I think it was. Okay. Either way, you can find both of those publications still online. Okay. Even though the wildfire, the lavender scare is technically over by the 60s, both the Matachine Society and the Daughters Pilotists, as well as many other queer societies, keep up the fight for equality in the civilian sector. Good. It was illegal to sell queer folk alcohol, so lots of bars were raided. Um, and in all states besides Illinois at this time, homosexuality was still punishable by law with hard labor and anywhere from a few years to life in prison. Illinois was the only one in the six sixties that was like, nah, not for us anymore. A lot of state it kind of snowballed in the 70s, but yeah, at this point it was everyone was just over it. Yeah. I'm over it. I wasn't even alive. I put fun, I put fun fact initially, and then I erased the fun part and just put fact. This is a fact you need to know. Okay. Federal law finally changed, federal law, so nationally, um, with Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, in which the Supreme Court ruled that intimate consensual sexual conduct is protected under the 14th Amendment, overturning the 1986 Bowers versus Hardwick decision and rendering remaining state sodomy laws unconstitutional. So until 2003, any remaining sodomy laws were still constitutional. That's crazy. I was 13. As I as I'm doing these notes, and I like because Tim's there, right? Hanging out. Um, but as I'm writing these notes, it's like, yeah, this is how hard it was the entire time I was alive. Yeah. Like this is what I was facing the entire fucking time. And every single step of the way, I'm like, how hopeless this must have felt. Like, not not only for all of the family bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

For him specifically, but like just as a queer person in America. Trying to be himself. Just yeah. And I mean, like, I like, you know, we can get it and we can talk about it on this level of like understanding that it is hard for people and empathy, but like also like, God, I can't imagine having to go through that.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

Like, and I feel very fortunate that I don't. And I also feel like it's like part of my duty as someone who doesn't to amplify those voices and say, hey, listen up, bitches. Like, yeah. It just just because it's not happening to me doesn't mean it's not fucking important.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

No, it's insane because like, I mean, watching him, because I mean, because he came out to me, um, I think I was like eight or nine. Um, and I actually remember the exact moment it happened. Cause, you know, society as a whole is like, oh, gay, that's gross, whatever, that's big.

SPEAKER_03 42:02

Yeah, gay was like it meant that something sucked. Yeah. When we were growing up, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Exactly. So, like, I specifically remember this. We were at his condo in Phoenix, and we were sitting on like the bottom steps, and he came out to me, and I just literally I looked at him and I was like, ew, gross, because I was like eight and I didn't fully understand like what was happening.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

Yeah, it's still, it was still, I mean, it still is, but like it was really still heavily stigmatized when we were exactly, but like now, like looking back, obviously, I'm like, okay, society was telling me that that's not cool.

SPEAKER_05 42:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

And like, I remember having a conversation with my mom about it as well, because she he had had a conversation with her first. He was like, Hey, I need to tell Sarah, like, I can't keep this on my chest anymore. And it also didn't really help the fact that like he had a boyfriend and he was also bar hopping at the time. And I was like, Who are these right now?

SPEAKER_03 43:03

You're gonna have questions.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Yeah, I had a lot of questions. So, like, he told me, but um, I mean, obviously, I accept it and I I love him for who he is, but like just watching him go through it from the age of not or like eight or nine to 17 was fucking ridiculous. Like, I have trauma for him because of like what I witnessed and like how hard it was for him to like be a person. Yeah. And it's crazy to think like even in like the early 2000s, it was still such a stigma to be gay. It's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_03 43:43

That's what he hasn't chimed in this whole time. I turned it back on the recording again. Yeah, he hasn't chimed in again. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

Maybe he wants to hear my side of it.

SPEAKER_03 43:51

Maybe maybe he's shutting the fuck up for once.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Be quiet, bitch. Um Yeah, no, like I literally watched him. I was like, he was. Was in and out of different psychiatric like places. He was on and off different medications. He just never felt accepted or wanted or he was just confused. And I'm like, dude, like fuck that, man. Like, huh? Here. He's here.

SPEAKER_03 44:19

Oh, good. He's just letting us know that he might be quiet, but he's still here.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

So he's around. Like, I just I can't. I mean, like, I believe that I am bisexual, you know, but I am never gonna understand how difficult it is for an like a queer person like that. Totally. And that was his biggest fear for me. Like, I remember him literally telling me when I was younger, he was like, How do you feel? I'm I'm fine, thank you. She's telling us. Um he literally told me he that his biggest fear was that I was going to be going to be. That I was a lesbian. And I was like, why? And he's like, because of everything that I've gone through.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

I mean, yeah, it makes it makes sense. Like the more and more like research that that I did, like, man, um I don't know. I think I just like I put it more into perspective, like, as like we continued to go through like these notes and stuff, I was like, What where does this end? And I was like putting it, I was like, it it doesn't, it's it hasn't. It doesn't like continuously. Yeah, I'll I get a little bit more into like the modern stuff later, but like, yeah, I was like, it it just isn't. Yeah. It hasn't ended. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

So sorry to trauma dump and tell you guys about my childhood, but um it's seemed relevant. I was like, it's relevant, okay.

SPEAKER_03 45:49

This is who we're talking about. We're talking about Tim. Um, okay, so uh do do do do where am I here? Right. Um The Matashin

Vietnam Draft Dodges And Crackdowns

SPEAKER_03 46:00

Society and the daughters of Bilitus are working for equality and um civil rights. Uh and that brings us into the Vietnam War era. The US is directly involved, like troops on the ground from 1965 to 1973, when the last troops are flown out. I could do a lot in the Vietnam War, it's so much longer than that. So, um, although this is still the Cold War era, and only a short time after the Red Scare and McCarthy's lunacy, there's a lot also a large counterculture that is emerging, and it inspires young people to question political conservatism and if this conflict is really worth their lives.

SPEAKER_05 46:36

So looking for me?

SPEAKER_03 46:38

No. Yes, we were. Um but not it. What? I want it. Attention, shush.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Um Alright, Gemini, calm down.

SPEAKER_03 46:47

I'm back. Thank you. Um so anti-war groups and underground publications gave the advice to young men who wanted to avoid the draft to be hoaxosexual or fake gay.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

Oh, I don't like that.

SPEAKER_03 47:03

Just like do not. Do not um which is kind of bullshit because a lot of these movements initially and vehemently barred LGBTQ folks from participating.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Yeah, like you're just taking advantage of an already like marginalized group. Or wait, that's not the right word. Is that the right word?

unknown 47:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Okay. Yep. I'm not very smart, guys. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 47:28

Um so just like in World War II, that only works sometimes because they need bot what they need are bodies, and you can't turn away every single man who says he's gay. It's the Vietnam War. One guy was asked if he liked girls, and he said, Yeah, I work.

unknown 47:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

Um, and he was like, Yeah, I did, but now I like boys. And the sergeant who's interviewing him was like, Good, there'll be plenty where you're going. Stamp. After go, and he's like, fuck! I love it. And but there was another soldier who was actually gay in the military who was like, Yeah, that works for us, just do your goddamn job. Um that is until he was other than honorably discharged in 1981.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Because he was gay.

SPEAKER_03 48:07

Because he was gay. So uh, but he was able to overturn the ruling because he was like, Y'all knew that I was gay the entire time. I did not keep this a secret. You knew. Fuck your discharge.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

I would take that to Yeah, it was overturned. It was overturned.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

He got an honorable discharge. Good. Because he was like, I didn't have a single fucking stand on my record, you knew that I was gay. This other than honorably thing is fucking bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

And it's the 80s, like, get it together.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

And so he like lost his shit, and they were like, okay, fine. Um so in 1969, the Stonewall riot occurs. Um, and out of it comes the Gay Liberation Front or the GLF. Um that, quote, quickly joined other leftist groups in fighting for rights, advocating for an egalitarian society, and opposing the war. So Me. Um Oddly enough, there had been some discussion about trying to get the military to lift the ban on homosexuality from the mid-60s to the early 70s. Okay. Um but as the Vietnam War was wild wildly unpopular, the goal fell to the wayside and groups started demanding honorable discharges.

SPEAKER_05 49:10

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 49:11

And um suggesting that queer folk refuse to fight. So they were going to say, hey, let us join and stop this ban, but then they were like, we want to fucking go to Vietnam. No. So they so they switched gears instead of lift the ban, they said, fuck your war. We don't want to go. Um and if we do have to go give us honorable discharges.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

Yeah, because like we're not we're literally doing what you're asking us to do. Like, there's not a stain on our record. We're not going A-WOL, we're not murdering like like people that we're fighting with. Like, why the fuck would we get anything other than an honorable discharge?

SPEAKER_03 49:50

Exactly. So they so that's why why they changed tactics. And they're like, fuck it, you know what? Keep the band, keep us out then. We don't want to go. Yeah. Um, so

Interrogations That Break People

SPEAKER_03 50:00

um, just because the military needed people though, it did not stop them from their anti-homosexual bullshit. Um, a Navy nurse stationed stateside. This is back off. Yeah, back off. Fuck you, huh? A Navy nurse stationed stateside was brought in by NIS, uh, the Naval investigative why I am blanking on the S situation, whatever. Um, because she had been seen at a party drinking and put her hand in another lady's pantaloons.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Did they say pantaloons or did you just say they said pants, I said pantaloons.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

Because it sounds just as ridiculous as the situation.

SPEAKER_02 50:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

Um, at this point in her life though, she hadn't even kissed another woman yet. It hadn't even come out to herself.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

I kissed a girl and I liked it.

SPEAKER_03 50:49

Sorry. Yeah. But she hadn't even kissed a girl, so she didn't know if she liked it yet. Um so let's see. This is what she has to say about her interrogation. Read page 122.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

Don't hate me. What are you gonna do? God fucking damn it. Here we go. Good for me.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

We're just waiting for Sarah. Because she got us alcohol, and alcohol makes us pee because we're old. And we still won't look at the camera because it freaks me out. I'll get used to it, Fran. I don't wanna look at you.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

I'm gonna have coffee today, and now I'm drinking, okay?

SPEAKER_03 51:28

Don't worry, I told them that. I'm in my 30s. Literally said, I was like, I was like, Sarah got us alcohol over in her 30s, she can't hold it anymore. Oh, I can't. Okay, so as I was saying, the navy nurse who put her hand in another lady's pantalunes. Pantalunes. Pantaloons. Uh, she was like, I haven't even kissed the girl and I don't know if I like it yet. And so this is what she has to say about her interrogation. Okay. Um, prepare to be disturbed. So NIS just kept on and on and on. I remember I was thirsty and they didn't give me anything to drink. They had me under these lights, and I was pretty freaked out. I mean, I was really upset about it. They said, You seem nervous. If you weren't guilty, you wouldn't be nervous. I said, Well, anyone being accused of something that could lead to being put out of the military on a dishonorable discharge would be nervous.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Yeah, and I'm being denied basic human rights. And you have me under these hot lights.

SPEAKER_03 52:26

I could see myself losing all of my benefits. I had been there for two years taking care of guys coming back from war. I would have lost all of that. Plus, my family would have been horrified. They wanted me to sign a confession, and I kept saying, I can't sign a confession. I'm not guilting guilty. I haven't done anything except party with these people. Anyway, I wouldn't sign their confession. I held out and didn't sign it.

SPEAKER_05 52:49

Good.

SPEAKER_03 52:50

Um, after that though, she says, I was very traumatized and very paranoid. It really changed me a lot. I no longer went out and partied. I stayed home and I would stay at home and drink. I was just a loner, very isolated then. I just decided decided to do my time and get out.

SPEAKER_05 53:07

Sucks.

SPEAKER_03 53:08

I know. It's really like it's really unfortunate. Like, and this is not the first story in like from these interviews I read in Ask and Tell um that talked about problems with alcohol after leaving the service.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

We're not pointing at the beer, we're pointing at the butt.

SPEAKER_03 53:25

Not us. We haven't been in the service. We just have a problem.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Like we do have a problem. We're millennials, okay? Leave us alone.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

So after her horrible experience, she obviously had a hard time trusting anyone and became very anti-war. When she got out of the military, though, she's like, Guess I better figure out if I'm a lesbian and started dating a woman she met at work.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

Was she a lesbian?

SPEAKER_03 53:46

Yep. Oh, good for her. Happy ending. There you go. Yeah, she was like, I read this thing in Cosmo about ladies being bisexuals, and the lady was like, Can I come over and read it? And then they started dating.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

Oh cute.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

She's like, Let me read that.

Matlovich Challenges The Ban

SPEAKER_03 54:00

Just kidding. Let's test it out. Um, so uh do do do. I'm gonna talk about one more gay man in the military, Leonard Matlavich. Have you ever heard that name? No.

unknown 54:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

I hadn't either. But he was like a super famous um gay person in the 80s because he was an Air Force Vietnam veteran, a race relations instructor, and a recipient of the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03 54:25

He was also the first gay service member to intentionally out themselves to the military to fight the ban on queer people. Oh, wow, okay. So people lost their shit over this. TV magazines, everyone went nuts. He was on the cover of Time. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Okay. Um I'm gonna look him up. What is it? Leonard what? Matlavich. Okay, continue.

SPEAKER_03 54:45

In 1974, he became aware of our friend Frank Kimeni, the um Medician Society uh Washington, DC dude. Um, he reached out to Frank, who was super stoked because he was like, he has an immaculate record. We're gonna like, if he's willing to, he can like we're gonna fight this ban because it's clearly fucking stupid. This guy has a great record. And he's cute. He's only the only thing he is is gay. So in March 1975, he slaps a letter on the desk of his commanding officer's like, I'm gay, bitch, and now he has a discharge hearing. The Air Force had a fairly ill-defined exception clause that could allow gay people to continue to serve if there were extenuating circumstances. These circumstances might include being immature or drunk, exemplary service, or a one-time experimentation, sarcastically known as the queer for a day rule.

unknown 55:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

Oh, sorry, queen queen for a day rule. Um I like either one. Either way, it's just for a day. It's a day past. Um the Air Force says, quote, just promise not to be gay anymore, and then you can stay in the Air Force. And he says, No. Uh, no thanks, I'm gonna be gay. And then he is honorably discharged. Good. Which I think is interesting. Because I think that this became such a spectacle that they really didn't have another choice.

SPEAKER_05 56:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

Um but he sues for reinstatement. It was bounced around for years, so from 1975 until 1980, when the Air Force said, no, he can't come back, but we'll pay him $160,000. Um, and he was like, Okay. So he took it. Um he honestly felt that even if he did continue like push and go back, that they would find a way to discharge him again. So he was like, all right, fine.

SPEAKER_05 56:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:32

Um in 1985, though, he came back into the public eye because he came became heavily involved again in the fight for adequate HIV and AIDS education and treatment. This is part of the AIDS epidemic. Um during this epidemic, the military implemented mandatory screening for recruits and service members. It was an absolute bar for recruits to enter and existing service members, if tested positive, would be discharged. As of 2021, this has not changed. So if you tested positive for HIV, you would be discharged. At the time, because HIV would always devolve into AIDS and there wasn't a treatment.

SPEAKER_05 57:11

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 57:11

So they were like, you're gonna keep getting sicker and we're not gonna be able to do anything about it. So they discharged them before they became a military problem, quote unquote.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

Right.

SPEAKER_03 57:19

Nowadays, we have treatment for HIV.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Yeah, like people can go undetectable for years.

SPEAKER_03 57:25

Yeah, and there and there are treatments and way to prevent it, and so it's not actually like a death sentence anymore. Like you it used to be absolutely a death sentence.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

And um it's just another way to demonize gay people. Yep, which is ridiculous because there are so many straight people. Like, who the fuck were we talking about last time?

SPEAKER_00 57:48

That guy, Roy. Oh, Roy Cohn. But he was gay. Oh, he was gay?

SPEAKER_03 57:54

Oh yeah. I know, and which is sorry, I guess I should have said that. Roy Roy Cohn, who perpetrated the lavender scare against gay people, who um helped Trump in 1971 um like go around the Fair Housing Act, Reagan's little fucking friend, had AIDS because he was gay.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

He was just Did he just hate himself so much?

SPEAKER_03 58:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:17

Okay, all right, got it. Yeah, it's it's all clear.

SPEAKER_03 58:20

Sorry, I did not make that clear. He was also gay.

SPEAKER_01 58:23

I thought he just Okay.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

And he actually got special treatment from the Reagans. Like he was like, help please. I I have AIDS. And they were like, Oh, you poor baby. And so they like sent him to places to get um AIDS treatment. However, they the Reagans also had a conservative gay actor friend who I can't remember what the fuck his name was. Um but he was living in France at the time and he found out that he had AIDS, and he was like, and he's like, guys, could you please help me? And they're like, No, you're just gonna die.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

I just don't understand how like I have I don't okay I'm not a very political person. I know that I lean a specific way, and I'm sure just by looking at me, you guys can guess which way I lean. Um excuse me, potential spam. Fuck right off. Um like I just don't understand how you can be an openly gay person and still support some of these conservatives. You know, he was not openly gay. He wasn't. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:27

No, I mean like enough that I think that some of these people, like I think the Reagans knew, right? McCarthy might not have known, but the Reagans certainly did.

SPEAKER_01 59:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 59:36

But why would you be willing to hurt people of your own community? Yes. Because it keeps it postpones it never prevents, but it postpones your own injury. It's just like in like the most uh well-known uh discrimination is the Holocaust, right? There were Jewish people who assisted the Nazis because it gave them favor and it like it postponed their own suffering, it never prevents it. Roy died of AIDS, it didn't prevent his suffering, but it postponed it through what were really hard years, and he was okay for those times where he could have maybe not been.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Right. I don't know, it's just crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:21

It is weird.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

Like I I mean, like I said before, like I will never truly understand the hardship of a lot of queer people. I mean, like, yes, I I am bisexual, but I come off as very straight.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:35

Mm-hmm. Yeah, if we have male partners. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

Exactly. Yeah. Like we're we're just never I mean, maybe someday. I have told Joey before that like when he dies or if we like get divorced when you die. When you die, or if we get divorced or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:51

Five years in a horrible boating accident.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

I mean Didn't hear it from me. Um, yeah, I was like, you're probably the last dude that I'm ever gonna be with.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:02

God, right? Like I do not want to not do this anymore. Yeah, exactly. Such a problem.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:07

Um and then your dad chimed in. I said, I think this is when Tim was serving too, right? Like I was just gonna like put this in there. And then he goes serving looks, bitchin'. Um yeah,

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Begins

SPEAKER_03 1:01:20

he had to chime in. Now, don't ask, don't tell. The military's policy for LGBTQ people from 1993 to 2000. Actually, it said 10, but it's really it went finally was done in 2011.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

Isn't that crazy? I feel like don't ask, don't tell is like so much older.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

That's what I mean. Like, that's like when I was researching, I was like, God, this was really like not that fucking long ago. Like, it feels like it was, but it's not. It's just kind of like how your textbooks use black and white photos of the civil rights movement to make you think that it happened forever ago, but actually it really wasn't. Ruby Bridges is alive in her grandma.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

Alive, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:02

Okay, so 1992, the presidential candidate, Bill Clinton, was asked if he believed queer people could serve in the military, to which he said, yes, I support the repeal of the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Cool rich.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

Ah, his saxophone. Then he became president and he went to the joint chiefs of staff for the armed forces, and they basically told him to get fucked. They were not on board with him lifting the ban. Because they had so they had banned it at this point. And I don't know if I I feel like that was like made pretty clear by the fact that they were like, get out. But just in case you didn't catch that, they banned homosexuality after the Vietnam fr from World War II. So all of those things that went into place about the psychological screening, the undesirable discharge, all of that started in World War II. It's carried through as a ban on homosexuality.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:57

They were able to broaden it from just sodomy, which is the sex act, to being a homosexual. So if someone was like, I think I like boys, they're like, ah, kick them out. As opposed like before it'd be like, I think I like boys. They're like, but I haven't caught you doing a dude though, so it's totally fine. But now it's like everyone could be gay, and they are, and they kicked everyone out. So George Jesus had for their enforcers were like, no, and he was like, but guys, the military could have saved $500 million in the past decade alone if it hadn't investigated and discharged 17,000 gay service personnel. What a waste of taxpayers. Conservatives are supposed to also be fiscally conservative, and I'm just saying that $500 million on checking out gay dudes' history is a waste of taxpayer money. So, uh, and Colin Powell was also like, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

Oh my god, I forgot about him.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:53

Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

He's buck.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

Uh Colin Powell was like, no, because they're not disciplined. What about military discipline and state secrets and blah blah blah blah blah blah. He wasn't necessarily wrong about saying that discipline might decay because, um, but it wasn't because gay people were gonna be ill-mannered, it was because of homophobic people. Yes. Here is a huge trigger warning. We're gonna go into some really ugly shit. Oh fuck. Uh the d as the debate on lifting the ban of homosexuals in the military was heating up in Washington, so were Tempers and the armed forces. In October 1993, three Marines in North Carolina were arrested for assaulting a man leaving a gay bar. The year before, though,

When Homophobia Turns Deadly

SPEAKER_03 1:04:40

before this was an argument, um, there was a worse incident on a U.S. naval base in Japan. And this is the murder of Alan Schindler.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

That sounds familiar.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:49

In October 1992, Schindler had informed his superior officers that he was gay and was in the process of being discharged.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:56

He may have decided to tell them because of the harassment he was facing by fellow sailors who made life a living hell for anyone they even suspected of being gay on his ship. Gross. Right. After his discharge, Schindler was followed to a public park by two sailors who had beaten him so severely the Navy could only identify him by his tattoos.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

Um What are you homophobes so afraid of? Accepting the trip.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:19

He's walking in the park. Leave him the fuck alone. He's in the park. Like, what does this have to do with you? Like, are you like they're so insecure in their own sexuality that they are threatened by the fact that this man is just gay. Is gay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:32

Like, if he was like actively stabbing you and like raping you at the same time, sure, go ahead, murder that dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

But that's just a criminal activity. Exactly. It has nothing to do with his sexuality. That's a crime. Yeah. That's a crime, babe. It's just like fucking murdering. This man is just walking home. One of the murderers, Terry Helvie, and told investigators that he was, quote, disgusted by homosexuals and stated he would do it again if he identified another gay shipmate.

unknown 1:05:59

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Fun in prison, bitch.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:00

Yes, he was sentenced to life in prison. Like the debate continues in Congress as to lift the ban or not. Schindler's murder seemed to prove that hostility toward openly gay troops would destroy unit cohesion.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:14

No. Because and oh wait, hostility.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:17

Hostility towards them.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:18

Yes. Okay, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:20

Yeah, not that gay people were like, ha, I'm gay. Bah. But like that people they'd be like, oh thank god, I can tell you I'm gay. And then people would be so afraid. Be so afraid that they disfigured a man. Ugh. I it just yeah, I cried. I cried writing this. I'm really glad I'm keeping it together. Um it was a really hard night. Um but I'm just gonna say this. As the assailant was a straight man, maybe it's like a heterosexual problem. Maybe you should keep your heterosexuality quiet, you know? Like isn't that crazy? Like, are you are you a violent heterosexual? Because like I need to know. I need to know if you're heterosexual because they are prone to violence.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

It's just crazy to me that like heteropeople don't have to come out. I think they should. I think like when you're of age to figure out your sexuality, you should be like, hey, just so everyone knows, I'm straight.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:11

And then I cry.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

It's like, God, this is not the life I wanted from my children. Um disowning you.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:18

How dare you! Um, okay, so could homophobia be compared to racial bigotry? Because this was an argument at the time. Yes. A lot of people were uh there were a lot of people who were upset by the fact that this comparison was being made for civil rights. They're like, this is not a civil rights issue, like to think that Colin Paul Powell is one of these people. Who said that? Colin Powell. So hang on, I'll get into it. So here's the million dollar question. Could hope homophobia be compared to racial bigotry? What's a phobia? An exaggerated, usually inexplicable, and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation. Gays. A bigot is a person who is intolerant or hateful towards people whose race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, etc., is different from the person's own. So it is bigotry.

unknown 1:08:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:09

Oh, there we are. So some black service members thought that it was a civil rights issue, but many others disagreed. Top among them was Colin Powell. So in an interview, he stated, quote, skin color is a benign non-behavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:33

Is he from Arizona? Why did they make such a big deal about him? I feel that they made a very big deal of him when I'm when we were younger.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:41

Colin, he was the first um African-American Joint Chief of Staff, uh, major military general guy. He was the first African-American general of some sort.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:52

Okay. I am not well versed in the military. He's the he's the first of a very big name. Um that's big. But there was another service member who disagreed. A master chief of the U.S. Coast Guard, um, Vincent Patton, was assigned to research the parallels between President Truman's desegregation executive order um and what Clinton wanted to do, and he saw no difference between the two. Vince Pat Patton was also, I don't remember if I just said this. You should not have given me alcohol. Um he was the first um black Master Chief of the US Coast Guard. So Master Chief is like another super high ranking. Yeah, and he was the first African-American to hold that position. Okay. So those are two different, just different positions. Um, some people agreed one way, some people agreed the other way. Yeah. Bill Clinton took into account the congressional and the Joint Chief of Staff opinions and citizen opinions. In 1990 in a 1993 poll, 48% of the American public opposed lifting the ban versus 42% who wanted it to be lifted. Um in the end, Clinton deferred to Congress and ultimately supported don't ask, don't tell. Don't ask means that the State Department will stop requiring recruits to discuss their sexuality, and there would be no further investigations of subordinates.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:13

Don't tell me that a military personnel were forbidden to perform homosexual acts or state they were queer. Okay. Uh, regardless of this, investigations continued, and if any personnel were caught in a relationship with the same-sex partner or admitted to being queer, they were discharged. So not a lot changed. Uh Clinton said it's not a perfect solution, and later described it as a political defeat. Not perfect indeed. Here's another fucking trigger warning.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

Okay.

Barry Winchell And Unit Failure

SPEAKER_03 1:10:40

In July 1999, Army private first class class Barry Winchell was murdered while he slept by a fellow soldier, Calvin Glover, who was spurred on by um Justin Fisher, another Winchell had met a trans woman named Calpurnia, fucking lovely, Adams, uh, when he was at a nightclub with Fisher. So Justin Fisher, one of the perpetrators of this crime, went to a nightclub with Winchell, who frequently had trans performers. Winchell ends up liking and dating one of the performers.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:14

And uh Fisher's like, ah, and he's let me guess this person hadn't transitioned all the way yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:21

Not sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:23

Um, but Fisher begins to spread rumors about Winchell and Adam's relationship, and Winchell becomes the target of harassment, broadly. Um surprise, surprise, his superiors do nothing about this harassment. Two days before the murder, Winchell and Glover got into a fight, like a fist fight, in which Glover lost. Fisher harassed him, Glover, about being beaten by a fucking F slur. Gross. And continued to goad him until Glover got a bat and bludgeoned Winchell to death.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:56

That's a rational reaction. What the fuck? So I just I don't understand. Like, I just don't why are you so hateful?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:07

I don't know. I don't like like I said, it was a very upsetting night.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:12

Having to like when what night was this?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:16

Last night.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:17

So I didn't respond.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:19

Yeah, I was I was really busy working. Um like I said, this has been like a long time working, eh? Because maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:26

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:29

She's a fucking problem. Um she's ruining the vibe. She's throwing off our groove.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:36

She really is.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:38

That's okay, we love her. Um she's just also like really fucking meany. So it's been a while. And like I said, there's this mass amount of information that I want to do justice to.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:52

And so it's I I'm like, okay, how do I cover this with enough detail and also keep it within like a reasonable amount of time, not 12 fucking parts. So back to it. Still, even after that murder, it would be another 12 years before the repeal was able to take place. Don't ask no tell was a talking point in the 2000s election because of this fucking murder. Al Gore um endorsed the repeal, saying that support for Don't Ask No Tell would be a litmus test of sorts for joint chiefs of staff candidates. A litmus test is like a pass-fail test, basically. Okay. Um, so if they were like, we think we should take it down, he's like, you're a joint chief of staff. It's it's a way to do it. Um, but the Democratic Party platform that year was silent on the issue. The Republican uh platform was that homosexuality is incompatible with military service. They're sticking to it. I roll. Okay. In July 2004, the American Psychological Association issued a statement that don't ask, don't tell, quote, discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, and that empirical evidence fails to show that sexual orientation, excuse me, is germane to any aspect of military effectiveness, including unicohesion, morale, recruitment, and retention. That election year, 2004, both parties maintained their 2000 stance. Democrats say nothing, Republicans say no gaze in the military. Loudly. In 2005, a cost analysis was done. And I love cost analysis. At least $95.4 million in recruiting costs, and at least $95.1 million for training replacements for the uh almost 10,000 troops that were discharged from 1994 through 2003. Um, that was all lost. While the true figure actually might be higher. So it's just like when you have to hire new personnel, you have to invest all this time in training. It's better to retain who you have than hire new people. Right. It just costs the military millions of dollars to do that because they're like, no gay. In November 2007, 28 retired generals and admirals urged Congress to repeal the policy, citing evidence that 65,000 gay men and women were serving in the armed forces and that there were over a million gay veterans. Both sides have people saying they support it. Colin Powell changes his tune because time has passed and now is a better time. Sorry. Gay veteran.

unknown 1:15:26

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:28

Um, also sidebar 2007 is the year he died, so.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:32

And it still wasn't done yet.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

Nope.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:34

I just like, and this also, like, this part was also really hard for me because I was like going through this and I'm like, oh, just a little longer. Like, that's all I could keep thinking in my head was just a little more time. Sorry. And there's just like, I will throw this can at your face if you start. I am so sorry. Uh I'm gonna stop talking about it. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:58

It's okay, it's okay. Just so everyone knows, I am very uncomfortable with emotions. Because trauma. You got this.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:09

Deep breath, you got this. So let me tell a story that was like kind of related. So throughout my youth and my teen years, like I was extremely suicidal. Um, and there was a song by Good Charlotte that was called Hold On. Yes. And that would get me through so much stuff, and I just keep thinking like, hold on, hold on. And like I kept as I was like going through this stuff, and I was thinking about your dad, I was like, oh, if only you held on like just a little long, like, but it with this entire history, how are you supposed to know when it's gonna end? Literally anything that's gonna be any different, like it feels endless, and it was just really um heartbreaking um to go through this and to think about like your dad is just one of the you know millions, millions of people who are dealing with this.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:02

Um okay, so sidebar also, just so everyone knows. My dad and Kelsey are very close. We talk a lot. Yeah, he he if if I'm not listening, he'll go yell at her. So just so everyone knows. Also, they never met in real life. No, no.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:24

I never met him uh while he was Earthside. Yeah. Um, so Colin Powell changes his tune because people are allowed to change their mind.

unknown 1:17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:35

Um, I think it's really hard for like politicians, especially because they're like, well, in this time you said that this, and it's like, yeah, okay, well, like I learned. Um, he learned. Yeah. A 2010 poll was done of active military post personnel. Overall, in response to a variety of questions, 50 to 55% of the force indicated that a repeal will have mixed or no effect. About 15 to 20% believe that the repeal would have a positive effect, and another 30 believe that it would have a negative effect. Okay. What I think is important in these polls specifically is like, will it have an effect? Like, will it be a positive effect? Maybe. But like also like the best thing that could possibly happen is like literally nothing fucking changes. And 50 to 55% of military personnel were like, nothing's gonna I don't think anything's gonna fucking change. Whether or not they are or aren't, so fucking what? Because the job gets done.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:30

They're here, they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:34

Yeah. So I think that like you have to add that to like the positive effect people, because it's like what worst case scenario, nothing fucking changes. Um, 30% were like, it's gonna be bad, but fuck them. Anyways, um, there's a lot of congressional stuff that happens, lobbing it back and forth. Uh,

Repeal And First Public Milestones

SPEAKER_03 1:18:55

how can we get this thing repealed? It's a lot that you don't need to know. What you do need to know is that President Barack Obama signed the repeal of the don't ask, don't tell into law in December 2010. Um, I'm sure you can guess based on the literal everything I've talked about, uh, that there was strong opposition to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Um, and because it's still a fucking problem today. It was only 16 years ago. So um there was absolutely backlash. Um, and people are like, does this chaplain have to perform gay weddings now? Um, if he wants to. He can say no if he wants. Doesn't have to. Um but, anyways, we're just gonna puppety about it. So here's the good stuff, because I want to talk about some positives. A bunch of queer service members are not allowed to live their lives openly. Woot. Just one day after the appeal, Randy Phillips posts his coming out video on YouTube where he calls his dad and tells him he's gay. Woot. And his dad's like, we love you, and everything's good. Um, Gary C. Ross marries his partner of 11 years, Dan Swezi, um, making them the first same-sex couple to legally military couple, sorry, to legally marry in the US.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:09

Cute.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:11

That's really cute. On December 2nd, Ginger Wallace becomes the first openly um lesbian or sorry, any LGBTQ plus service member to have her partner participate in the pinning on promotion ceremony. So her partner gets to to give her her little promotion. Um widespread news coverage continued even months after the repeal date when a photograph of Marine Sergeant Brandon Morgan kissing his partner at a February 22nd, uh 2012 homecoming celebration. Um I think it's the one where like he's like he's like jumped up on his partner, like holding him and kissing him.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:51

The typical welcome home. Yeah. Yeah. Um homecoming. It's just like the typical homecoming photo. So cute. Um in July 2012, uh, the Department of Defense grants permission for service members to wear their uniform at Pride events.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:08

Oh, I love it. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:10

Uh in 2021, President Joe Biden announces that VA benefits would be available to other than honorable discharge recipients.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:19

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:20

So eve like, even if we aren't able to reverse all of it, it doesn't matter because you get your benefits now.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:26

So, okay, so like, um, because they don't do they still do other than honorable? Okay, never mind. I thought this was like going back to like the 60s and 70s.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:37

It includes them too. Oh anyone who anyone who has had an other-than-honorable discharge gets this. Good. Okay. Um, and in 2024, almost all of the 13,500 people with dishonorable discharges under Don't Ask, Don't Tell have now been switched to honorable discharges. Good. And they get VA benefits. Good. Um,

New Backlash And Staying Vigilant

SPEAKER_03 1:22:00

and now we have to now us here today have to make sure that we stay vigilant to keep the rights of our fellow citizens. Uh, Pete Hegseth is the current Secretary of Defense, and he has stated many times that he is done with quote woke military.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:15

What does that even mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:17

It means that people of color and of j different sexual orientations are able to be promoted and join the military.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:27

I love it here.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:28

He is attempting to go back to prior to Don't Ask, Don't Tell with the discharge of queer military personnel and the prohibition of further queer people entering the military. He has actually fired a number of top generals because they either represent groups he identifies as DEI hires or they support equality. It has been done already. Like he's done that, they're fired. Um he's also trying to rename the U.S. naval ship Harvey Milk to something else because he is somehow offended that it is named after a gay man who served his country. His argument is that Harvey Milk was given an other than honorable discharge. Which because of his sexual orientation, not because he actually had an immaculate record in the military, but he was discharged because he was gay. And but Heg Seth is trying to say that that means he shouldn't have a a ship named after him because it was not an honorable discharge.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:23

Sounds like he's jealous.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:24

He can't even do a pull-up.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:26

I mean, I can't either, but that's besides the point.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:28

Yeah, but I'm also not out here pretending like I'm some sort of like You did it again!

SPEAKER_01 1:23:33

Fucking what? What? The fucking the screen did a fucking thumbs down.

unknown 1:23:39

Okay. God damn.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:41

Sorry. I shouldn't have given myself alcohol. Give me a heart attack. Okay, so um we need a little bit of brevity right now, okay? You're welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:53

So it's a fucking problem, and we need to be we need to remain as vigilant as we possibly can so that we don't go back into the dark ages any further than we already are. Yeah. Um, just as a reminder to everybody, your uh small town and midterm elections are super duper important and they possibly count even more than these big elections do. Go out and vote. Even if it's like, oh, that's just city council. That all builds up. Those are important uh things, which reminds me we need to go vote um before next week. I think official voting is June 4th. But you can go early vote now, just by the way. Um, anywho, we're um so that's as up to date as I can get for right now because I got up to present. Um, so I know I left a lot out. I'm sure if any listeners have a deep knowledge of some of this stuff, you've noticed that I've lost some things. Um, but I hope it feels as though I've put into put in the effort to tell a well-running story. Um, I've been stressing out about it um for months. For months. Yeah. You know, not only trying to like deal with the baby, but trying to make sure I tell a really good story. Um and leaving stuff behind has been really hard.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:06

Um I mean, like if if people are interested, I mean, I'm sure they could like ask for specific, like, hey, can you go into more

Listener Stories And Final Requests

SPEAKER_01 1:25:15

detail about this or you know, whatever else?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:17

So yeah, and if you have any insight, please send me an email. That's the macaroni podcast at gmail.com. Again, that's the meant macaroni podcast at gmail.com. Please tell me stories, put your thoughts in the comments. Let me know if you want to hear more about something.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:34

If you want to give Tim a shout out, he would say hi, Tim. He would die all over again.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:42

Listen. Okay, so remember to follow us on Instagram, send us your stories and suggestions, comment, subscribe, rate, review, follow.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:54

Start a like discussion on our Facebook too. Like, I'm actually really curious about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:59

Yeah, get in on it, comment, all that kind of shit. Whatever platform that you're listening, viewing us on, whatever they have you do, do it. Because we really want to hear about it. Um, positive things only.

unknown 1:26:12

Just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:13

Just don't be a dick. Just don't be a dick on it. Okay, that's all I think, right? I think so.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:21

Okay, well, uh Timothy, I hope that you are happy uh with your your episode today. Yeah, this was all his idea. He ambushed Kelsey like a year ago and was like, hey, do an episode on me. For Pride Month, do it on me. Yeah. Um, and his picture won't always be right here. It's really important. It's normally right here where my uh Freddy Krueger Baphomet is. Um, he just needed to be the center of attention.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:52

So uh he was very excited for this episode because it was for him.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:57

So he's a demon.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:00

Close the computer on this one. This one is done.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:03

And we'll see you guys in a couple of weeks. I'm gonna do um a couple of I haven't decided yet, one or two um super influential gay people. So hell yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:15

But anywho, bye, guys. Oh revoir. Anyway.