Consider This from NPR - LGBTQ Vets Still Suffering The Consequences of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

It's been more than a decade since 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was repealed. Introduced in 1993, the law remained in effect until 2011. During that time an estimated 114,000 troops were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Veterans who received an "other than honorable" discharge from the military under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" were ineligible for veterans' benefits. That meant missing out on benefits like free VA healthcare, VA-backed home loans or funds for college tuition. While the Pentagon says that 90% of applications to change discharge status have been granted, advocates say that as of March 2023, only 1,375 vets have had benefits reinstated – a tiny fraction of the number of affected vets believed to be out there. NPR's Quil Lawrence follows the story of two gay veterans, both affected by "Don't Ask Don't Tell", but in very different ways. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail]. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. I believe when you tell people they can't do certain things in this country that other people can do, there ought to be an overwhelming and compelling reason for it. When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, one of his promises to the nation was that he would end the World War II era policy that banned lesbian and gay people from military service. The policy I am announcing today is, in my judgment, the right thing to do and the best way to do it. Clinton signed a law that would allow gay, lesbian or bisexual troops to serve in the military, but only so long as they weren't open about it. It is right because it provides greater protection to those who happen to be homosexual and want to serve their country honorably in uniform,

obeying all the military's rules against sexual misconduct. It is the best way to proceed because it provides a sensible balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of our military to remain the world's number one fighting force. This law was referred to as don't ask, don't tell. If you were a gay, lesbian or bisexual member of the military, you did not talk about it and you could not be asked about your sexual

orientation or your gender identity. I felt like hiding my fairness was the price I had to pay to do the job I wanted to do, to get the results that I wanted to get out of life. LaTanya White served in the Army for 15 years. And so it was like, if I can't be gay, I won't be gay. And that's just how I've lived my entire military career. For some troops, living under Don't Ask, Don't Tell meant having a sort of double life. Tammy Smith is a retired Army general. When Don't Ask, Don't Tell came into place, for me,

what it felt like was at least the acknowledgement that I existed. I think of it as I had two sets of friends. So I had the people that I worked with, and then I had a whole separate set of friends that were kind of my off-the-grid friends. And those were the members of the LGBT community. But for others like Lindsay Church, the risk of being outed or caught made it difficult to maintain relationships. Church was a second-class petty officer and linguist in the Navy for four years. I literally broke up with somebody because she sent me two petty officer and linguist in the Navy for four years. I literally broke up with somebody because she sent me two dozen roses while I was in the hospital, and I was too scared that I would get caught. So her not understanding how much fear I lived in felt like a denial of what I was going through,

and so I just ended it because it was easier than navigating the uncertainty of whether or not I was going to get caught. During the next 17 years, roughly 14,000 service members were discharged under the policy. What do we want? Freedom to serve! When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Freedom to serve! Over that time, many LGBTQ groups fought for the law to be repealed. And finally, things changed in a big way for LGBTQ service members. This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.

It's the right thing to do. President Barack Obama signed the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in September of 2010, and the policy changed the following year. No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie or look over their shoulder in order to serve the country that they love. The policy that discriminated against gay, lesbian, and bisexual troops while claiming to do the opposite was finally over. But consequences of the law remain.

Thousands of veterans who received an other-than-honorable discharge from the military under Don't Ask, Don't Tell weren't able to get their benefits. Benefits like home loans, health care, and money for college. In 2021, the Department of Veterans Affairs made it easier for discharged veterans to receive their benefits, but only a tiny fraction of them have been able to do so. I feel like it's one of those, oh, we got you now. Oh, thanks. Have you seen enough deaths? Have you seen enough hospitalizations? Is that what it is? Because a lot of people who got disarmed, newly discharged, or less now they're discharged because of being LGBTQ are the same people

who need the VA's help and assistance, especially when it comes to mental health. So do I think the VA made a good decision? I do. I think there's still a lot of way ahead. Coming up, we'll hear about the struggle to receive benefits for LGBTQ veterans. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Tuesday, July 4th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation. Working together to create a just world where all people have access to renewable energy, clean air and water, and healthy food. The Schmidt Family Foundation is part of the philanthropic organizations and initiatives created and funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt to work toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education,

democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. This is the story of two men whose lives diverged around the military's discriminatory policy. My name is Stephan Stephanidis, and I'm 54. I joined the Navy when I was 18. My name is Bob Alexander, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. Both men joined the military at about the same age and both planned on making it a career. For Stephanidis, it was a family tradition. My uncle was a captain. My great-uncle was a master chief. My father was a chief engineer, USS Kitty Hawk in Vietnam. My family's been serving this country for all of the last century.

Stephanidis and Alexander were both in the process of figuring out their sexuality. The ban on gay troops serving openly wouldn't be lifted for another 20 years, says Alexander. And that was a problem. I just decided that I would just follow the rules in terms of not acting on my sexuality, which meant that for the first, let's see, 12, 14 years, I was a lone celibate not dating. NPR veterans correspondent Quill Lawrence takes it from here. That's where their stories diverge. Alexander managed to hide for 20 years. Stephanides got caught. He was seen at a gay bar with some other sailors.

They cut my locker open and found some gay magazines. Okay, so they used those magazines to charge me with a violation of 102, which was being homosexual. He got an other than honorable discharge, which for a veteran is a brand of shame. No automatic VA benefits or VA health care. Getting a civilian job can be hard. Employers ask about military service and character of discharge. And Stephanides was suddenly outed to his family. They wanted nothing to do with me.

It was all arguments that destroyed my family life. I turned to drugs and alcohol as soon as I got out of the Navy. And within a couple of years, I was homeless and living in the streets. And I spent 20 years in the streets. Meanwhile, Bob Alexander spent those two decades rising through the ranks in the Air Force, but still also on the run. The way I handled it mostly was I moved a lot, right? Whenever I never stayed anywhere long enough for people to really get to know me too well. At least twice, he nearly got caught. Rumors started, and he'd jump on the next chance to move, even if it wasn't great for his career,

or it meant walking out on a mortgage and losing a house. In the 22 years I was in the military, I think I had 11 permanent duty assignments, and that's not including, you know, deployments. Alexander did make the rank of lieutenant colonel, just keeping his head down through the homophobic jokes and slurs. Then on September 20th, 2011, the ban ended, and the military did what it does, started to follow the new orders that troops could serve openly. Alexander sat in a room full of senior officers talking about how to handle gay service members. I said, you know what, I'm a gay service member, and send them to me and I will handle it. And that's how I came out. The last year, year and a half of my time in the service was just amazing. And it was validation.

These folks were wonderful. Once the fear was gone, once the unknown was unmasked, you know, after all that, after everything I'd been through, that validation in the end was very meaningful. But he knew that validation was missing for untold numbers of other veterans who never got to finish their careers the way he did, openly and with full honors. That led Bob Alexander to a second career as a lawyer and his first legal job in San Francisco trying to help gay veterans with other than honorable discharges. But first, he had to find them. So first I started with flyers. I put up flyers all over the Bay Area, you know, in the gay bars, places I knew that, you know, these LGBTQ veterans were frequent. And I got nothing. No response at all.

Thing is, after the decades-long campaign to allow troops to serve openly, the momentum just wasn't there to track down all the casualties of that policy. Advocates estimate that since World War II, about 114,000 troops were discharged for their sexuality. There were often other charges listed or heaped on to the discharge, so the paperwork's not always clear, but the Pentagon told NPR that as of March 2023, only about 1,375 veterans had been upgraded by discharge review boards, just over 1%. The Department of Veterans Affairs offers a much quicker solution, says Sue Fulton, VA Assistant Secretary. Bottom line, if you're a veteran or a survivor or family member who was impacted by Don't Ask,

Don't Tell, come to VA. We're going to do everything in our power to get you the benefits you've earned and so richly deserve. The VA can, for benefits purposes, reclassify most other than honorable discharges. It usually takes months, not years, like the Pentagon's process can. But VA doesn't track the number of Don't Ask, Don't Tell vets it has upgraded. And a dozen years ago, Bob Alexander was learning that some vets maybe didn't want to reopen this painful time in their past. So then I went to gay pride events in both San Francisco and Oakland. He stood at pride parades for days, but he now realizes he shouldn't have put the word veteran on the flyers. They were told by the military, they were told by the VA, told by society that they were not veterans.

You put up these signs that say veteran, they probably didn't even look at the flyers. Eventually, he looked where the need was most desperate, among the homeless. And that's where he met Stefan Stefanides, 20 years since his discharge from the Navy for being gay. You know, I was in the street living in the gutter, literally behind a trash can. Stephanides had no idea the policy had changed

and that he was now eligible for VA housing and health care and disability. In San Francisco, they had a homeless fair where homeless people could go get socks and clean needles. Bob Alexander had a booth at that homeless fair with a big sign saying, We Restore VA Benefits. Even then, Stephanides didn't want to go. Bob Alexander had a booth at that homeless fair with a big sign saying, we restore VA benefits.

Even then, Stephanides didn't want to go. Actually, my boyfriend brought me to them. I think Stephan had a panic attack just approaching a nonprofit veteran service organization was traumatic for him. They told me, you know what? We don't leave our wounded in the battlefield. You served your country for two years. And regardless of your discharge, we don't want to see you suffering.

So we handled getting Stephan his access to the VA. And it was a simple letter from them saying, it just said, for the purposes of VA, we find your service to be honorable. Getting a letter from the VA thanking me for my honorable service was like, it's spiritual for me. I was so excited. That's the VA part, health care and disability. Bob Alexander says the Pentagon is taking longer. His discharge paperwork, we're working on that now.

But just that acknowledgement from the VA that he is a veteran was like a light, just like a light shone down on him. I was so, so proud. And it inspired me to be of service to others. Stephanides now runs a support group in San Francisco for LGBTQ veterans and records their oral histories. You know, I can continue to be the person that I wanted to be when I was much younger and I had joined the service. That was to serve my country. There's still ways I can do that. There are probably tens of thousands of veterans living without their benefits. To find them would take a deep dive into Pentagon records and a sustained effort to locate them and upgrade their papers. Several former and current Pentagon officials said,

in the current political climate, with the right-wing bashing the military as woke, that's unlikely to happen. That was NPR's Quill Lawrence. At the top of this episode, you heard reporting from NPR producers Mallory Yu and Mia Venkat. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org.