#gay veteran

[montyjeffrey]

Allen R. Schindler Jr. was a 22-year-old American Radioman Petty Officer Third Class in the United States Navy who was murdered 30 years ago today on Navy Day while on shore leave in Sasebo, Japan, by his fellow shipmates, who were provoked only by the knowledge of his homosexuality.

Allen R. Schindler Jr. was born on December 13, 1969, in Chicago Heights, Cook County, Illinois, to Dorothy Hajdys-Clausen and Allen Schindler Sr. Allen was the third of four children, and his family was three generations Navy. His grandfather served in WWII and his stepfather in Vietnam; following in their footsteps, Allen enlisted while still in junior high at Bloom High School. After graduation, he shipped out and left Chicago Heights for the first time to serve his country.

Allen was in the Navy for four years. He served on the USS San Jose, the USS Midway, and was serving on the USS Belleau Wood at the time of his death. The USS Midway was Allen’s dream assignment. He described the 11 months he spent on the aircraft carrier as his happiest days in the Navy. The Midway was a relatively tolerant ship where Allen didn’t feel the need to hide being gay.

On the Midway, he saw action in Operation Desert Storm and received a patch for his involvement in the campaign. Allen even extended his four-year tour so he could ride the last voyage of Midway before its decommission and got his own memento — a tattoo of Midway on his arm.

In December 1991, Allen was transferred to the USS Belleau Wood, and the harassment began almost immediately. According to reports, the Belleau Wood gained a reputation for being "the worst ship of all" when it came to homophobia and violence, where there was open hostility towards gay shipmates amongst the 950-plus crew. Newcomers Terry M. Helvey and Charles E. Vins were part of a group on board the ship that routinely harassed shipmates suspected of being gay. Helvey threatened gay shipmates that if they didn’t get out of the military soon, he and his gang were going to personally do something about it, and he continued to harass Allen whenever he could. Allen’s shipmate and friend, Keith Sims, reported Helvey and Vins to the ship’s legal officer, Captain Bernard Meyer, but nothing was done. Instead, Meyer probed into Sims’ sex life. When shipmate Richard Eastman reported being attacked the night before Allen was killed, Meyer took no action to stop the harassment and also probed into his sex life.

Allen was punched, pushed against walls, and repeatedly called homophobic slurs. He told his uncle that sailors had attacked him. Homophobic notes and graffiti were left on his bunk. Sims said they would deliberately spill hot soup on him. When Allen complained to his superiors in March and April of 1992 that his locker was vandalized and he had received multiple death threats, little was done in response. Instead, Douglas J. Bradt, the Belleau Wood Captain, ordered him to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, despite Allen not being an alcoholic.

Allen’s complaints continued to go unanswered. By September, he had reached his breaking point and requested to see the captain, but his request was denied. While operating the radio, Allen transmitted an unauthorized statement, "2-Q-T-2-B-S-T-R-8," which read: "Too Cute To Be Straight." The message was heard by much of the Pacific Fleet. Allen described the defiant message in his journal as his way of letting out his "true colors."

On September 24, Allen went to see the Belleau Wood Executive Officer, where he formally declared he was gay and requested an administrative discharge and transfer. Allen told the XO, "If you can’t be yourself, then who are you?" The XO agreed but told Allen he still had to take what was coming to him. Allen also informed Captain Bradt and Captain Meyer. He was told the processing of his discharge would take two weeks, but his superiors insisted he remain on the ship until then. Although Allen knew his safety was at risk, he obeyed orders.

On September 25, Allen was called to appear at a captain’s mast to deal with his unauthorized radio message. He had requested that the hearing be closed for confidentiality, but Captain Bradt disregarded his request and opened the mast to 200–300 crewmen in attendance. Allen made no admission of his homosexuality at the mast. Some shipmates took it as an invitation to harass him with impunity. Allen’s rank was reduced from RM1 to RM3, and he was punished with a 30 day restriction to the ship.

As word of his sexual orientation spread quickly throughout the Belleau Wood, Allen’s friends began to avoid him. Allen confided in his ex-boyfriend, Navy veteran Jim Jennings, how increasingly difficult it was becoming for him to avoid confrontation. On October 2, he wrote in his journal: "More people are finding out about me. lt scares me a little. You never know who would want to injure or cease my existence."

Straight sailors who knew Allen and were concerned for his welfare introduced him to a trio of gay entertainers working near Sasebo; one of the entertainers, Eric Underwood, said Allen told him "people harassed him 24 hours a day" and that he had such a hard time going back to that environment that he had to coax him to the door. When the Belleau Wood was getting ready to leave Sasebo, Allen was reluctant to leave Eric’s room and was trying to stretch out the goodbyes. The next night, he was dead. Entertainer Valan Cain had gone to the public restroom where Allen was slain and found blood all over the walls and inside the urinals. By the next day, someone had left a bouquet of flowers on the floor. "You could see blood streaks almost to the top of the roof," Cain said. Many servicemen interviewed afterward expressed revulsion at the attack. One serviceman remarked, "Whoever did that should hang."

On the morning of October 27, 1992, Allen called his mother and told her he was coming home for Christmas. It would be the last time he would ever speak to her again. Just before midnight, Allen’s mutilated, disfigured body was found sprawled out on a public restroom floor.

Terry M. Helvey and Charles E. Vins stalked and followed Allen into the public restroom, where they ambushed him, then savagely, sadistically, and brutally beat and stomped him to death until he was unrecognizable. His mother could only identify him by the tattoo of Midway on his arm. Every organ in Allen’s body was destroyed. His face and head were caved in, and he had shoe prints imbedded into his face and chest. The pathologist who performed the autopsy on Allen said it was the worst case he’d ever seen in his whole career, even worse than a case of a man trampled to death by a horse, and compared the damage done to Allen’s body to that of a high-speed car crash or a low-speed airplane accident.

Captain Bradt, who tried to keep the murder quiet and had threatened Allen’s shipmates, was sent to shore leave in Florida. For testifying against Helvey, Vins was given a four-month sentence, of which he only served 78 days. Helvey was given a life sentence, but since 2002, he has been eligible for parole. He was denied parole on March 7, 2022.

Allen Schindler’s case became synonymous with the debate concerning LGB members of the military that had been brewing in the United States, culminating in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Allen’s mother, Dorothy Hajdys-Clausen, after learning the truth about her son’s death and the Navy’s subsequent coverup, became one of the most outspoken and sought-after advocates for gay rights to serve openly in the military. In 2011, the DADT policy was repealed, allowing LGB servicemen and women to serve openly in the military for the first time.

Allen Schindler loved the Navy and was a proud sailor who volunteered to fight for his country — to lay down his life if he had to. He didn’t sign up to die to advance gay rights, but that is ultimately what happened. It was brave of him to come out when he did in the environment that he did, and he died because of it. He was a hero.

[thefatalflesh]

His tombstone, meant to be a memorial to all gay veterans, does not bear his name. It reads, "When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."

Leonard Matlovich - Wikipedia

[yourdailyqueer]

Michał Waszyński (Mosze Waks) (deceased)

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Gay

DOB: 29 September 1904 

DOD: 20 February 1965

Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish

Nationality: Ukrainian / Polish

Occupation: Director, producer, veteran

Note 1: In the 1930s Waszyński became the most prolific film director in Poland, directing 37 of the 147 films made in Poland in that decade, or one out of four.

Note 2: During the war he was relocated to Persia (Iran), and later as a soldier of the 2nd Corps of the Polish Army to Egypt and Italy. As a member of the army film unit, he filmed the Battle of Monte Cassino,

[0sbrain]

i think one of my least favorite troupes in tf2 fanfics has to be scout finds x and y are dating and freaks out/starts being openly homophobic towards them because "canon typical homophobia"

they are mercenaries. fucking contract killers. do you think anyone gives a flying fuck about homosexuality being illegal? you see, they are ok with murder and gruesome violence, HOWEVER they draw the line at two men holding hands because the words on the paper say it's a no no

he would probably tease them because, that's normal that's what friends and annoying coworkers do. and sometimes he might step on a line. but my dear friends. if scout was genuinely homophobic to any of the other mercs, im afraid he wouldn't survive the winter (irse a mimir). he would get snapped by a twig and it doesn't even have to be by the merc he was insulting. anyone in the vicinity would suplex his ass. son, we all suck dick here. get used to it

[i-support-gay-doctors]

if lisa cuddy grabbed me by the tie i would simply pass away

[catmisfortune]

holy molay 😱

[skrambinn]

Happy Winchester Wednesday!

[joonytown]

Voltron on your timeline in the year of our lord 2022?🤨 (I was in fact obsessed with them in 2016-2018 but that’s between me and god)

For Day Two I picked the prompt “tarot” and immediately thought of the Tower card and them.

“The Tower is commonly interpreted as meaning danger, crisis, destruction, and liberation. It is associated with sudden unforseen change.”

Now isn’t that fitting for Voltron and Klance🥴

[catboycooter]

has anyone else realized that the mishapocalypse is ten years old this year. are we even doing anything to celebrate her.

[otoso]

A proud history reblog

1948 - 1996

When Perry J. Watkins was drafted in 1968 he came out as a gay man and proceeded to serve openly in the military. He received an honorable discharge when his first enlistment expired in 1970. In 1971, he reenlisted for a second three-year term, at which time the Army judged him to be "eligible for reentry on active duty." In 1974 and 1979, the Army accepted Watkins' applications for a third, and then a fourth tour of duty. Throughout his career Watkins was categorically declared to be “outstanding for his professional attitude, integrity, and suitability for assignment” and was deemed one of the “most respected and trusted soldiers, both by his superiors and his subordinates." But in 1980 Watkins was told his security clearance was being revoked. This action was appealed by his superior officers and his security clearance was re-instated. The Army responded by moving to discharge him. When Mr. Watkins sued to prevent his discharge, the Army reversed course stating it would instead deny him re-enlistment when his hitch ended in 1982. Watkins filed sued again and, in 1989, the United States Court of Appeals ordered the Army to allow Mr. Watkins re-enlist. The Bush Administration appealed the ruling but in November 1990 the Supreme Court let it stand. Rather than re-enlist, Mr. Watkins – by then 42 years old – opted to settle for full retirement benefits, an honorable discharge, retroactive pay and a retroactive promotion from staff sergeant to sergeant first class. Sgt. Perry remains the only openly gay member of the military ever to claim such a high-court victory.

[justsomedrawing]

[ziptie-bouquet]

Alright. So. The Bioshock Infinite issue.

I haven't completed the game but I doubt it'll do a 180 to completely change its politics at this point. (Long post so I added a cut!)

I went into the game and immediately recognized the "Bioshock tm" lack of subtlety and depth when dealing with serious political issues. It has been plaguing all the games in the series. But still, I had an optimistic mindset. I told myself that even if it lacked nuance, racism is a very important issue to bring awareness to.

Something that bothered me with the shallow takes on chauvinism and racism in this game is that it portrays them as things of the past. It doesn't help that they're so exaggerated. It doesn't have the bite of things you can actually still see today. It's not pervasive, it takes the idea that bigotry is only ever bigotry if it's blatant hatred to the extreme.

I think that, like the two other games, it has a very rich environment and potential. DeWitt's involvement with the Native Americans genocide could have genuinely been an extremely compelling plot point had it not be relegated to some sort of INDIVIDUAL guilt. His native american heritage is just a small detail within the tapes. The pride his old sergent has about killing tribes that he could be a descent of is never fully confronted, and you even get encouraged to treat him with kindness and mercy.

I'm honestly waiting for this to get expanded on, but it's the reason why I was in denial for so long about what had happened with the revolutionaries later in game. He's still a guy who was part of a genocide and has not fully confronted it out loud. He's unreliable and I would not trust his takes on racism.

With that in mind, I make my way to Finkton. As soon as I get there, I start killing every cop I see without even getting told to do so by the game. I think I might have missed a fuck ton of scripted animations and dialogues by doing this. The game very strongly established the people there are slaves, and are constantly under the surveillance of the cops I just killed.

I am hyped as shit as soon as the revolution rolls out, but DeWitt's first comment about how "Fitzroy and Comstock are the same besides the names" worried me at first. No worries, I tell myself, surely the game will be smart about it! Surely it will be about how DeWitt is wrong and Elizabeth is gonna teach him he has internalized racism from genociding indigenous people.

Then both him and Elizabeth make this comment again. The game HAS to give Daisy a completely out of character moment to even make killing the black female revolution leader seem like a sensible thing to do. It HAS to make the revolutionaries you kill almost all white after this to prevent you from seeing the obvious racism of what you're doing (alongside resource minmaxing I imagine). I went from being hopeful this will be a just and nuanced tale about confronting your own biases to seeing the game is going to be the weakest lib shit ever. Genuinely going down the route of "all violence is bad :(". They have the absolute gall to do this after literally breaking time and space to bring a revolutionary back to life because he was a POLITICAL PRISONER and got brutally murdered by white supremacists. (Also its fucking hilarious I can kill cops in the hundreds but when the oppressed minority wants to then its some horrible terrible thing)

I don't know, this was a lot of words to not say a lot but it's 7 am and I'm still in shambles I cannot believe they did this. Did nobody proofread the script?? How did this even get published?? Why is it so critically acclaimed??

I am really hoping it'll do a 180 but god am I doubtful.

( @solsono Je te réponds avec un poste à cause de la limite de caractères + en anglais pour les gens qui passent devant mais merci!)

[yourdailyqueer]

Lionel Charlton (deceased)

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Gay

DOB: 7 July 1879  

RIP: 18 April 1958

Ethnicity: White - British

Occupation: RAF Veteran, writer

Note: Charlton resigned his position as the RAF’s Chief Staff Officer in Iraq as he objected to the bombing of Iraqi villages.

[rubdown]

[1982brucespringsteen]

time for gilmore gays posting. in a butch luke & transmasc jess situation, who lends who his copy of stone butch blues by leslie feinberg??

[newbuddylove]