Serving in Silence? Australian LGBT Servicemen and Women [Accepted Manuscript] / Noah Riseman

Serving in silence? Australian LGBT servicemen and women [accepted manuscript] / Noah Riseman. Newsouth Publishing, Sydney: 2018. ISBN: 9781742235851. Embargo: 6-1-2019 [p. i] Serving in Silence? NOAH RISEMAN specialises in the histories of marginalised people in the Australian military, particularly Indigenous and LGBTI people. He is the co-author of Defending Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service since 1945 and author of Defending Whose Country? Indigenous Soldiers in the Pacific War. For the past four years he has been coordinating this Australian Research Council Discovery project documenting the history of LGBTI military service. SHIRLEENE ROBINSON has published extensively on aspects of LGBTIQ history, along with a wide variety of other topics ranging from histories of childhood through to the HIV and AIDS epidemic and the role of volunteers. She is also the President of Sydney’s Pride History Group. Her most recent publication was Gay and Lesbian, Then and Now: Stories from a Social Revolution (with Robert Reynolds). GRAHAM WILLETT is a recovering academic who has spent over 30 years teaching, researching and writing about the history of queer Australia. He is the author of Living Out Loud: A History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia and of many chapters and articles. He has a particular interest in bringing this history to wide audiences and has organised conferences, exhibitions and history walks. [p. ii] [p. iii] Serving in Silence? Australian LGBT servicemen and women Noah Riseman, Shirleene Robinson and Graham Willett [NewSouth] [p. iv] A NewSouth book Published by NewSouth Publishing University of New South Wales Press Ltd University of New South Wales Sydney NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA newsouthpublishing.com © Noah Riseman, Shirleene Robinson and Graham Willett 2018 First published 2018 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry [To come] Design Josephine Pajor-Markus Cover design Lisa White Cover images The Rainbow Wreath laid on Anzac Day 2017 at the Cenotaph in Sydney’s Martin Place. The Rainbow Wreath showed pride colours and was an opportunity for DEFGLIS to remember the sacrifice of LGBTQI service personnel who served in silence alongside their brothers and sisters in arms. Lest We Forget. Matt Akersten Printer Griffin Press All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The authors welcome information in this regard. This book is printed on paper using fibre supplied from plantation or sustainably managed forests. [Insert UNSW Sydney logo] [p. v] Contents Abbreviations Introduction Section 1: Silences and Discretion, 1944–73 Brian McFarlane Carole Popham and Christina Dennis Julie Hendy Wally Cowin Section 2: Bans and Witch-Hunts, 1974–92 Susie Struth Richard Gration Yvonne Sillett ‘Mark’ Section 3: From Tolerance to Inclusion, 1993–2018 David Mitchell Matt Cone Bridget Clinch Vince Chong and Ellen Zyla Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index [p. vi] [p. 1] Introduction The rains cleared just in time for the 2017 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. A crowd of 200,000 onlookers watched more than 200 floats and 9000 participants march in a kaleidoscope of colour. The parade attracted floats from groups across the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, including sporting clubs, religious groups, charities, political parties, lifeguards, tradies, corporations, volunteer and non- profit organisations, HIV/AIDS support services, police, emergency services, cultural and ethnic societies, fetish subcultures and local governments. The First Australians and the 78ers – men and women who had been part of the first Mardi Gras in 1978 – led the parade. Amid this elated celebration were LGBT members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and their allies, who proudly marched down Oxford Street in their uniforms. The contingent of Navy, Army and Air Force (RAAF) members, followed by family and other civilian supporters, strode in perfect formation to loud cheers from the jubilant crowd. The next morning, some of that euphoria was dampened when revellers awoke to an opinion piece in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph by conservative columnist Miranda Devine. She condemned the ADF for allowing its members to march in uniform in Mardi Gras. This was not the first time an ADF contingent marched in uniform – they had been doing so since 2013 – nor was it the first time the ADF received criticism. Devine argued that Mardi Gras was a political event and therefore ADF members should not be allowed to march in uniform. She also attributed the ADF hierarchy’s decision to permit its members to march in Mardi Gras as part of ‘a radical social engineering experiment, rejecting what it regards as an outdated male Anglo culture and segregating its troops according to ethnic, religious, sexual and gender identities which are accorded special privileges as victim groups’.1 Missing from Devine’s opinion piece was a deeper understanding of why LGBT ADF members and their allies wanted to march in uniform, as well as why the ADF hierarchy has supported them. For marchers, it is primarily about showcasing their pride as members of both the ADF and the LGBT community. ‘Cooper’, a lesbian in the RAAF, explains why the uniforms became so important to their contingent. From 2008- 12, ‘It [the banner] literally just said, “Defence”, and to be walking up the middle of Oxford Street and people going, “Oh yeah, Defence. What’s Defence?” … I just went, “Whoa, okay, there’s still some things happening out in society with the military that people don’t know about.”’2 Army member Patrick Lockyer has marched twice in uniform; he says, ‘for me, that’s just an opportunity to show – or to demonstrate to others – that Defence is an inclusive workplace’.3 Seeing LGBT Defence marchers has also had a positive impact on other service personnel. RAAF Leading Aircraftman Jake Smith said in 2015, ‘Without seeing the march, I would still be in the closet and hating life.’4 The emphasis on inclusion is the very reason that then-Chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, first approved the request to march in uniform. Defence believed visibility at Mardi Gras would ‘send a strong message to serving ADF members that Defence leadership supports tolerance and inclusion of sexual orientation and gender diversity, thus promoting an inclusive culture and fostering a greater sense of pride in Defence’.5 In 2015, the Navy, Army and RAAF’s most senior warrant officers volunteered to lead the Defence contingent. RAAF Warrant Officer Mark Pentreath said: ‘Why wouldn’t I be proud [to lead the contingent]? These men and women are part of the team that is our future as an ADF. To me, marching in the Mardi Gras parade is no different to representing the Air Force at any cultural event that is important to our people such as White Ribbon Day, or International Women’s Day.’6 Marching in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade marks the culmination of a long series of significant changes in the ADF’s attitude towards LGBT service people. The ban on homosexuality in the Australian Defence Force was lifted on 23 November 1992. The struggle for the right of transgender people to serve continued longer, with their open service only permitted since September 2010. Despite these relatively recent moves towards inclusion, LGBT men and women still signed up to serve their country in significant numbers in preceding decades. They were forced to conceal their sexuality or gender identity and faced persecution and discharge if they were discovered. Many of these men and women displayed great resilience in navigating an institution that denied them the right to love openly or to live truly as their authentic gender. Many made their contribution at great personal cost. Serving in Silence? gives voice to the LGBT men and women who have played an integral role in Australia’s military history since the Second World War. These life stories of 14 men and women from different branches of service and different historical eras illuminate the changing ADF policies, practices and experiences of LGBT servicemen and women. We have selected these narratives from interviews we have been conducting since 2014 with current and former service personnel. Readers will note that we have not included any intersex people in this book – the ‘I’ often included with LGBT. The ADF never had policies about intersex personnel, and as such intersex variations have always been seen as medical conditions. Depending on a person’s intersex variation, they may or may not have been allowed to serve, but would need to do so identified as either male or female. At the time this book was published, only one of our over 100 interviewees was intersex, which reflects their small percentage of the population at large (estimated at 1.7 per cent by Intersex Human Rights Australia – Commented [NR1]: Apparently they changed their name last month – good thing I checked! formerly Organisation Intersex Australia) and within the ADF. Because of some of the sensitive issues discussed in that interviewee’s story, they preferred it not to be included. The 14 rich life stories allow us to explore complex questions. On the surface, that LGBT people would opt to join an institution that explicitly banned their participation is perplexing. How might we understand their participation? What was it like to serve in combat roles in places such as Vietnam, while still hiding a central part of their identities? What opportunities did service offer to find other men and women similarly attracted to the same sex? Did homophobia, transphobia and sexism intersect? What toll did hiding their sexuality or true gender identity take? We map the impact of homophobia and transphobia, both subtle and overt.

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