(Full disclosure: I am a Sanders supporter who voted for him in the Texas primary and a transwoman. This diary does not advocate for either candidate, it is just a response to some ignorance on display here)
In the past few weeks, I have seen no end of diaries and comments telling me that the Clintons, Hillary and Bill are homophobes because of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that was adopted by the services when the Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 that was issued on December 21, 1993 took effect on February 28, 1994. This policy RELAXED the rules about serving while gay or lesbian.
The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service
(my bolding)
As abominable as that policy was, it was forced upon President Clinton, who actually campaigned on the promise to allow open service regardless of orientation, by the Republicans and by certain conservadems in Congress. Even Barney Frank ultimately, (though reluctantly) voted for the language that included the ban on open service by gays and lesbians, (we trans folks were excluded). But for some context, let me give you an example of what came before DADT:
Before DADT, the services pretty much left punishment for being openly LGB or T up to the unit commanders so the consequences of admitting to being LGBT ranged from none to sanctions like losing rank, pay, privileges, earned benefits and in some cases, even brig, (jail) time. It largely depended on whether your C.O. was a raging homophobe or not.
I was outed by my room mate who was attempting to distract from his own second DUI in two years and my world changed. I went from being a 4.0 sailor to a pariah instantly but not immediately. You see, my C.O. at the time knew me and knew my work and most pilots like to make it back to the ground and he knew that my work and I helped them do that. I was told that nothing was going to happen over that. Things seemed to have worked out.
And then we had a change of command. The new CO wasn’t as forebearant when he found out. I got a call while I was at home asleep telling me that I had to come to work in my dress whites and they took me to mast THAT DAY, without the ability to prepare, without the right to call witnesses and I was “represented” by a Chief Petty Officer who I had never met before. In the end, I was stripped of two pay grades, half of my pay for three months, all of my earned benefits, (including MY money which I had saved for college), my earned leave time, my security clearance and my job as an F-14A airframe mechanic, (which apparently I was okay to do during wartime but not now when I was a “security risk”), along with my Naval career. My discharge was characterized as OTH, (other than honorable) and I was denied everything I had earned. It was like the past almost five years didn’t happen, except for the unpleasant noise and stupid haircut I had put up with.
That was in 1991. Fast forward a few years when one of the first items on President Clinton’s agenda was to allow gay and lesbian service members to serve openly without fear of repercussion. One of the first because, well he HAD campaigned on it, after all. Because that is how DADT began, NOT as some kind of nefarious, homophobic plot by Hillary and Bill. It was not to be though because of opposition by Republicans and a huge number of conservadems who forced the compromise that became DADT.
What DADT did was to homogenize sanctions for being found out to be LGB, (not T, we weren’t included formally), and to take disciplinary action away from the unit commanders. It made sure that all of the persons discharged for being lesbian or gay got fair treatment like honorable discharges with earned rank and benefits intact and weren’t exposed to the kind of ridicule and hostility I was exposed to.
I can only WISH that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy had existed in 1991! Being able to serve openly would have been much better of course, (heck, we transfolks can’t even do that now!), but that just wasn’t going to happen in the early 1990s. As misguided and awful as the policy turned out to be, it was forced on President Clinton, Barney Frank and others by those who refused to allow open service. Mrs. Clinton didn’t even have a vote at all so it pisses me off no end that people who don’t know wtf they are talking about would use this as a cudgel against her or anybody else, except for those people like Sam Nunn and Ben Nelson who balked at allowing open service for LGBT people.
That is the reality and I don’t care if it doesn’t fit into your ideological box. I have been trying to NOT write a diary about this because it is still too painful for me to think about much even 25 years later and because it will inevitably degenerate into more Sanders/Clinton Rox/Sux meta and I’ve spent this primary trying to avoid that. But the comments and diaries by ignorant people are like ripping a scab off over and over and over. There are plenty of reasons to rip on the Clintons but this trope is absurd and it is insulting to those of us who lived it. And no matter how else you feel about it, Hillary Clinton didn’t have a vote and can’t be held responsible for it at all.
Stop it! Please, out of a sense of decency if not reality at the very least, just stop it!