Gays in the Military

The military is a primary site for the social construction of ideas about gender and sexuality in the United States. The presence of gays in the military became a highly controversial issue in the late twentieth century, sparking a national public debate about the meaning of manhood because it represents a direct challenge to the traditional notion of the military as a strictly heterosexual institution designed to train young men in hegemonic masculinity. Supporters of the ban on gays in the military fear that their presence will contribute to a breakdown in morale and authority, which would lead to inefficient military performance.

During the late twentieth century, in the aftermath of the Sexual Revolution and the gay rights and liberation movements, American society increasingly recognized a variety of ways of being masculine. But the military assumed a discriminatory stance toward gays, defending a more traditional understanding of manhood and assuming homosexual men (and all women) to be incapable of physical toughness and martial discipline. It also assumed that the presence of women and gay men would threaten the intense homosocial bonding and heterosexual desire considered essential to military effectiveness. Because of such concerns, military culture forced gay military men to live closeted lives through much of U.S. history.

Gays have, in fact, served in the U.S. military throughout history, but not openly. In 1778 the U.S. military recruited a gay European military prodigy by the name of Baron Von Steuben to train American troops during the Revolutionary War. Benjamin Franklin believed that Steuben, despite the rumors of homosexuality, was a master of military strategy. Steuben lived up to his reputation and was instrumental in America's victory against Britain. Ironically, sixteen days after Steuben arrived, the army dismissed its first solider for homosexuality.

The nineteenth century brought other accounts of gays in the military. For example, the poet Walt Whitman recorded chronicles of his affairs with male soldiers during the Civil War. In addition, the Confederate Army had a famous gay general, Major General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, who fell in love with his assistant, Captain Irving Ashby Buck. Despite repeated reports of homosexual relationships during the Civil War and various wars against Indian nations in the nineteenth century, the U.S. military did not aggressively pursue the rumors of gays in the military.

As homosexuality became increasingly stigmatized in American culture during the late nineteenth century, official military policy toward homosexuals began to change. While the U.S. military did not directly address homosexuality prior to World War I, the Articles of War of 1916 became the first official article of military regulation addressing homosexuality and sodomy as a felony. At the end of the war (in which many gay men served) Congress passed the Articles of War of 1920, which named any type of sodomy, consensual or otherwise, as an offense.

During World War II, as American officials became increasingly concerned about national toughness vis-à-vis Nazi Germany, the military treated homosexuality as a disease, employing military psychiatrists to identify and treat any homosexuals in the ranks. By 1943, formalized regulations banned homosexuals from all branches of the military. However, these regulations were malleable when periods of concern over national security required the retention of all military manpower. A research investigation conducted by the Department of Defense in 1957 led to the Crittenden Report, which concluded that gays were fit to serve in the military. The navy kept the report secret until 1976, however, when naval lawyers discovered it in Pentagon files.

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