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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. If you were on one San Diego pier earlier this past week, you might have caught a glimpse of a giant navy ship launching slowly out into the Pacific and you may have also noticed the name, the USNS Harvey Milk. That's right. The US Navy has named six new oiler ships after civil rights leaders and one of those is now called the Harvey Milk.

Milk was perhaps best well-known for being the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, assassinated on the job in San Francisco just a year into his term, but maybe you didn't know that he also served in the Navy during the Korean War era and was discharged after being questioned about his sexual orientation. The naming comes almost 70 years since his discharge, 10 years after President Obama overturned "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and just eight months after President Biden undid Trump-era rules that effectively ban transgender individuals from serving in the military.

The issue of LGBTQ discrimination in the military is ongoing. It ebbs and flows apparently, depending on the personally-held views of those who take the highest offices, right? Here with me this Veterans Day to talk about the USNS Harvey Milk and what it represents is Professor Paula Neira, Navy veteran and clinical program director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Transgender Health. She played both an integral role in repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." In this past weekend's boat launch, she carried on a certain Navy tradition that we will get into. Professor Neira, so delighted to have you. Welcome to WNYC.

Professor Paula Neira: Hi, Mr. Lehrer, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be with everybody today. Initial happy Veterans Day to all of my fellow veterans. Really, thank you for your service and it was my privilege to be among you.

Brian: All right, that's great. You had a special role at this past weekend's event. I read that you along with Senator Dianne Feinstein sponsored the ship. What does it mean to sponsor a ship? How does that work and how did you come to have that role?

Professor Neira: Well, the ceremony is that at the ship's christening, which was this past Saturday, we would be the folks that would break the champagne bottle on the ship, which is a long-standing naval tradition for good luck for the ship. We were named to be the co-sponsors by the then Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. Every ship in the fleet has one or a couple of sponsors. Beyond the ceremony, the sponsor is to imbue the ship with their character and their personality and their spirit. Really, it's over the life of the ship as the crews rotate through to really be there to support the crew and to let them know that their sacrifice and service is really appreciated by our countrymen.

Brian: I also read that you christened the ship. Do they still do that by breaking a bottle of champagne over the hull?

Professor Neira: They do. You name the ship and then you break the champagne bottle.

Brian: Do you know where that tradition came from?

Professor Neira: It actually goes back into antiquity. Through the ages, different cultures and societies would bless the ships as they were launched. Eventually, that ceremony and tradition evolved into the-- The way that we do it today is that in our tradition is we break a champagne bottle, we name the ship, and then it's launched.

Brian: Can you talk a little bit about Harvey Milk's military service? I think it's a part of his story that even people who know other parts of his story are less familiar with.

Professor Neira: It is a lesser told part of his story is that Harvey Milk was actually the son of Navy veterans. Both of his parents had served in the Navy. Harvey was very proud of his naval service. He was a diving officer assigned to a ship during the Korean War. While he was on active duty, he had reached the rank of lieutenant junior grade. He was investigated because of sexual orientation and he was given a less-than-honorable discharge because of his sexual orientation.

That effectively ended his time in the Navy, but he was very proud of his naval service and would wear his diving officer's belt buckle as a connection to that. In fact, he was wearing that on the day that he was assassinated. During the christening service, Stuart Milk actually shared some information that was new to me in trying to understand Harvey's discharge.

The Navy has a process now and really encourage all LGB veterans that if you've got less-than-an-honorable discharge that you can petition the Navy to upgrade that discharge. The Navy offered that to Harvey Milk's family and the family declined. They declined because they wanted to stay in the historical record to show just how poorly sexual and gender minorities personnel who just wanted to serve their country were treated and that we should know that part of our history.

Brian: Do you have to answer that same question for yourself? I'm not familiar with what kind of a discharge you got.

Professor Neira: I received an honorable discharge. I resigned my commission. The Navy didn't throw me out. I walked away. I always say it was the hardest decision I ever made in my life. In fact, four days from now will be the 30th anniversary of that day. I came to understand my gender identity and the need to live authentically. In 1991, that wasn't going to happen by being able to stay in the Navy, but I love the Navy.

Brian: You just said that people who are dishonorably discharged because of their sexual orientation or gender identity could now apply to have that reversed, but that Harvey Milk's survivors decided not to apply for that so that that stain remains on the military's record. It's not a stain on Harvey Milk's record. It's a stain on the military's record that they would do that. Do you have an opinion about all the other people out there?

From what I've read, it could be 100,000 different veterans over the course of the past 70 years, who were dismissed, or otherwise counseled out or whatever they called it, in the past 70 years for their sexual orientation or gender identity. I wonder, do you think, "Okay, everybody, don't get that honorable discharge. Let the military have to live with that on the record for the rest of time or go ahead and get it"?

Professor Neira: I think it's an individual decision. One of the reasons why I would counsel folks to consider getting their discharge upgraded is that when you receive-- The levels of discharge, there's an honorable discharge, a general discharge under honorable conditions, and an other-than-honorable discharge. Those are the administrative discharges. A bad conduct discharge or a dishonorable discharge can only be granted by a court-martial.

The reason why I say people should upgrade it through an honorable discharge is because there are benefits or veterans benefits, the ability to apply for certain programs that are tied to be honorably discharged. If you don't upgrade it, you're excluded from those programs. That's why it really needs to be an individual decision. I understand wanting to make a statement of requiring the military to own this very horrible history, but it may come at a cost.

Brian: It's easier in a sense for Harvey Milk's family because he's not with us anymore, so they can make this symbolic gesture. For veterans who are still alive, their VA benefits are at stake?

Professor Neira: Yes.

Brian: Listeners, are you an LGBTQ veteran? Tell us about your experience serving in the military while gay or transgender on this Veterans Day, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Let's do some history here. Through some personal anecdotes, if anybody's out there who has any, did you serve under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in that era or more recently or maybe even before like Harvey Milk? I know we have some Korean War and even World War II vets out there today, 212-433-WNYC. If you were LGBTQ at that time, how open were you about your sexual orientation or your gender identity? Did you face discrimination? 212-433-WNYC.

Maybe you're one of the 100,000 service members from the number that I've read. It's that many who either left or were kicked out of the military because of your sexual orientation or gender identity in the past 70 years. Call in and tell us about it. How did you think about that experience then and how have you come to process it in the year since? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I guess I should say on the flip side, you can also call if you had a more positive experience being LGBTQ and serving in the military.

Maybe you were embraced and accepted. Call in and tell us about that experience too or anything else you want to say on this Veterans Day that's related with our guest, Johns Hopkins University Center for Transgender Health Director Professor Paula Neira, who's also a Navy veteran. 212-433-9692. Let's continue to talk about some of the history. Harvey Milk served during the Korean War era. Can you remind listeners what was the origin of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" under President Clinton? Because it was supposed to be a progressive policy, at least compared to what came before at the time, right?

Professor Neira: It was supposed to be a progression, but it was never implemented that way. Prior to President Clinton making the promise to remove the ban on LGB folks serving, it simply just was the policy that homosexuality was incompatible with military service. While the policy varied a little bit from World War I through "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was supposed to be the compromise where the military would stop asking.

They used to directly ask. When you were trying to join the service, they asked you, "Are you a homosexual?" They would stop asking. If you were gay, and I'm using that as an umbrella term, and in the force, you couldn't share any of that. Simply making a statement, "I am a lesbian," "I'm a gay man," "I'm bisexual," was enough to get you kicked out. The other parts of that policy were actually supposed to be don't pursue and don't harass.

It was supposed to end witch hunts and it was supposed to end the concerted attempts to try to remove folks based on their sexual orientation, which had happened in the past. While the witch hunts subsided, the fact was that LGB folks couldn't serve. It also impacted transgender folks because it's often perceived sexual orientation. The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law, and it was more than just a policy, it was a law, was premised on sexual orientation and not gender identity.

Brian: People had to stay in the closet, right?

Professor Neira: Yes.

Brian: I can only imagine since I wasn't in the military or involved in this personally that there could be any number of situations where a bunch of guys, largely hetero, are saying, "Come on, let's go out to a bar and pick up some women." Maybe their gay colleague didn't want to do that, but then he was forced to stay in the closet and not reveal why he didn't want to do that or maybe he went to the bar to hang around, and then it got even more awkward. Those kinds of things forced people into the closet in a way that must've been extremely uncomfortable for many people.

Professor Neira: All the time. When it says, "Don't ask," that was about the official thing. You'd go on a weekend, liberty. You would come back to your command on Monday and your buddies would ask you, "Hey, what did you do this weekend?" If you answered that question honestly, you're jeopardizing your career. One of the things that was most heinous about the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is it forced people to lie. It forced people to compromise their honor just to be able to continue to serve and had nothing to do with their ability to serve.

It also compromised the integrity of the military. Each of the branches of service have core values. Whether they call it honor or integrity, every one of our branches of service has that as a core value. There is no honor in forcing people to lie. There's no honor in not wanting to know the truth because it's uncomfortable. It was easier to try to appease other people's prejudice than to make the progress until we were able to finally get rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and then, in 2016, changed the medical regulations to allow for transgender folks to serve.

Brian: Madeline in North Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Madeline. Thanks for calling in.

Madeline: Hi, my name is Madeline. My pronouns are she/her for anybody who's caring. I was in the military from 2004 to 2008 under George W. Bush, which was like the height of that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which was kind of a joke because there was lots of asking and lots of telling.

Brian: You have a story about that by any chance?

Madeline: Yes. For me, I was so deep in the closet. I wouldn't share anything about my personal life for fear of anything getting out because it would've done this, but I have three people who were my contemporaries that I actually went to training with, actually got kicked out because they were found out as being homosexual. They weren't bragging about it. They weren't telling it.

It's just literally somebody found them on the tape and this was 2005 at the time this happened. Then, all of a sudden, you got an other-than-honorable discharge, which is almost like a felony on your record that point forward, which is just incredibly cruel, especially since LGBT people are generally overrepresented in the military as a proportion than in the general population because you have a lot of people who don't fit in at home, maybe don't know what's going on with their life, don't have their identity perfectly figured out.

They're just looking for purpose and a way out of their hometown and a whole new setting. The military is an easy way to do that. It just makes a lot of these rules barring transgender people, barring gay people from serving was just excessively cruel in my eyes. It's just terrible.

Brian: Madeline, thank you for calling and thank you for your service and thank you for your story. Professor Neira, do you agree with that estimate that LGBTQ people are overrepresented in the military compared to the general population?

Professor Neira: That is correct. The data bears that out, particularly within the transgender community.

Brian: For the reasons that Madeline stated that a lot of people, because of the fact that they fall between the cracks in society in various ways, because of their gender identity or sexual orientation and there they are as teenagers trying to figure it all out, that more than other people, they find the military a way to at least get some structure and direction and do something they can hook onto?

Professor Neira: I think it may be a fact. The bottom line is, I think, that LGBTQ+ folks are attracted to the military for the same reason that other people are attracted to the military. One is, obviously, the element of serving your country. I knew at the same time I started with the question about my gender as a child, I also knew that I wanted to go to the Naval Academy and be an officer in the Navy and serve the country.

My gender identity or my sexual orientation really was irrelevant to the decision of wanting to serve, but I think that the military offers opportunity and that people are looking for that structure. They're looking for education. They're looking for being part of something bigger than themselves. I think that that's attractive for everybody.

Brian: Listeners, we're taking your LGBTQ in the military stories on this Veterans Day and on the occasion of the christening of the USNS navy ship Harvey Milk in honor of that gay male Navy veteran from the Korean War era, who was not allowed to finish his service and got a less-than-honorable discharge because they discovered his sexual orientation back then and, of course, went on to be a gay community leader and the first-ever gay-elected official in the history of California back in the 1970s.

That's what we're doing for this Veterans Day. 212-433-WNYC. Who else has a story? 212-433-9692 with Navy veteran and Johns Hopkins University Center for Transgender Health Director Paula Neira. 212-433-9692. Larry in Manhattan, you're next. You're on WNYC. Hello.

Larry: Oh, I'm very happy to be here. Thank you, Brian. You are a national treasure.

Brian: Thank you, sir. Too kind.

Larry: [laughs] Okay, I'm 76 years old. I was drafted in 1968. It was the height of the Vietnam War. I was, of course, scared to death and the least likely person to be cashiered into the military. I was a slight, somewhat effeminate young man and I was very, very lucky I was sent to Germany instead of Vietnam. I eventually ended up as part of special services in the 7th Army Soldiers' Chorus. Now, my unit was unique in many, many, many ways, but it was unique in that it was about 50% gay and about 40% alcoholic.

We lived in Heidelberg and Heidelberg was the center for paperwork and the band and the chorus. There was an awful lot of gay people in all three of those units because we were drafted. I didn't have any courage to check the box. I was a little Catholic boy who was terrified of the reality of my life and the service centered me. It gave me a brand new scope of what was possible for a young person such as myself. I have to say that my life has been fantastically successful and part of that is because I was drafted.

Brian: How about that? You want to talk to Larry, Professor Neira?

Professor Neira: Larry, thank you. Thank you for your service and thank you for that story.

Larry: I don't like people to say thank you for my service, especially since 45 has had the position of power that he's had. I accept that you said it, but I'm going to reject it. Thank you.

Professor Neira: Okay.

Brian: You wanted to say something else about the content of his story, which as we hear was far from all negative.

[crosstalk]

Professor Neira: The progress we've made, I think, has allowed the folks that were in the service. Most of the people that serve are really good, supportive people, and these policies prevented them from being as supportive. It sounds like if you're in a good command and you're in a good environment, there was that support and you're able to find that camaraderie.

Brian: Larry, thank you again. Thank you very much. Not for your service because you don't want that, but thank you for your call. We appreciate that. Call us again. Let's get back to the history a little bit. Like I said, 10 years ago, this year, President Obama, 2011, overturned "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and you fought for that. What role did you play?

Professor Neira: I was able to, as a law student, join Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which was the organization really at the forefront of trying to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and then eventually joined when I graduated from law school as a staff attorney and then joined their board of directors and then eventually co-chaired their military advisory committee. I was able to use my background as a healthcare professional, as an attorney, as a veteran myself in that fight.

Brian: Now, in just the past few months, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that military veterans who were discharged under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" are entitled to full VA benefits. Is that a different category than the people in the Harvey Milk era, Korean War, who weren't even there under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?

Professor Neira: I'll have to defer to the VA, but my understanding is that anybody that was discharged in any era because of their sexual orientation to be able to partake of that, not just solely "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" folks, but, again, I have to defer to the VA.

Brian: When Trump took office or who our last caller referred to as "45" took office, he effectively banned transgender people from serving in the military as you well know. He said the more than 14,000 already serving would be allowed to stay so long as they have that formal diagnosis of "gender dysphoria" by a certain deadline. Talking about that second part first, do you know if active members sought that diagnosis? Is it a diagnosis that you even think should exist, gender dysphoria? Is that a supportive diagnosis or is that a slur? What did that entail?

Professor Neira: We haven't got enough time to really dive into the history of how medicine has the psychopathology of trying to paint gay and transgender people as mentally ill when they're not. The reason why they tried that is, remember, initially, that administration just tried to ban transgender people. There were immediately four lawsuits filed and they needed to come back with something else that sounded a little bit better.

That's where they came up with the pretext of gender dysphoria. That diagnosis exists more because of the way our insurance structure is that if you want to get paid for providing medical services, you need a diagnosis, so there's a diagnosis. As of January of 2022, the international code of diagnostics, what they call the ICD, is going to call the term "sexual incongruence." It's actually going to be removed completely from mental health and it'll be within sexual health.

Brian: That sounds like a--

Professor Neira: Some service members did seek that diagnosis because the way that the Trump policy was set up, if you had that diagnosis by a date certain, then you could then continue to seek medical care. If you hadn't gotten that diagnosis and then subsequently sought medical care, you could be subject to discharge.

Brian: Part of the issue, I guess, for Trump, although it is probably just way to pander to anti-LGBTQ sentiment in the voting population, that's my political analysis. One of his reasons was the taxpayer shouldn't have to pay for that surgery.

Professor Neira: Yes, the two arguments that the administration used to justify that was, one, the cost and, secondly, that it would be undermining good order and discipline. Because I know we're on the radio, I will just paint both of those as bovine fecal matter. There was absolutely no evidence and I had an opportunity. I actually spoke with the people in the Pentagon after a year.

The Pentagon spent a year studying it. The cost is way minimal. The military spends way more money on acne medicine and Viagra than it would cost to provide gender-affirming care to the folks in the force. There was absolutely no evidence and all of the senior leadership in uniform of each of the services testified this to Congress is that there was no upset in the force. There was no impact on good order and discipline or combat effectiveness.

That argument about if we let those people serve-- and then you can define those people by race, by gender, by sexual orientation or gender identity. If we let them serve, we're going to undermine good order and discipline and our combat effectiveness. That was the argument that was used in the 1940s when Truman racially integrated the military. At every time that we've expanded the opportunity for people that contribute to the mission, those who are opposed use the same argument and it's been nonsense all the time.

Brian: I like that euphemism, by the way, bovine fecal matter. Maybe we can take the acronym BFM and start a meme. Then it's something that people like me can say on the radio all the time without getting in trouble, "Oh, that's BFM." Kent in Hell's Kitchen, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kent.

Kent: Hi, I'm a longtime listener, second-time caller, but many years ago. I served in the US Army from 1984 to 1992. I was a military intelligence analyst for the last part of that. The military not only did something that wasted a tremendous amount of money but threatened our national security and, of course, also ruined lives of people. I think many people committed suicide, but we'll never know.

They took all these people who they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on top-secret background investigations and sending them to language schools and all stuff. Then they went on this McCarthy-like witch hunt, looking for gays in military intelligence. Because if you were gay, then you can be kicked out of the military, so you can be blackmailed. That means that you could possibly be blackmailed by the Soviets or whoever, but they created the whole situation by making it an offense where you could actually be put in jail and be put on hard labor for being gay.

It was a crazy thing that we lost all these Farsi and Arabic linguists. Some of them were people who were trying to be Russian linguists or Chinese linguists and then we said, "No, we really need them for the changing threat value." If we put so much money and time and energy training really good, patriotic, fantastic people and then they created the situation, which made them what they said was blackmailable. It was insane.

Brian: That's a story I didn't know. That's worth knowing. Professor Neira, did you know it?

Professor Neira: Actually, one of the things that I'll add to what Kent just said is, actually, the Navy did a study in the 1950s on that very issue of whether or not gay folks are more susceptible to blackmail. They found that it isn't supported by evidence. That report was suppressed for several decades because it undermined the argument that gays can't serve. Yes, that notion is completely nonsense.

Brian: Kent, thank you so much- [crosstalk] Oh, Kent, you want to add something? Go ahead.

Kent: They went by this idea that lesbians all play softball and gays are all in theater groups. They would go to all the community theaters and they would try to infiltrate them and investigate everybody to find out who was the gays in the community theater and the softball troops. I just thought that was funny that they- [crosstalk] That was their scientific approach.

Brian: Backstage, on-field profiling. Kent, thank you very much for your call. Last question, Professor Neira. President Biden, of course, reversed Trump's transgender ban. Is there a sense that the next conservative president can just reverse course again or is this secure?

Professor Neira: The next conservative president not only could reinstate a ban on transgender personnel but could reinstate a ban on gay folks because the ability of LGBTQ folks to serve in the military is not in law. When "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed, it just reverted back to service department regulations, which, as we saw during the Trump administration, can be attacked by an administration. That's why these have to be not only just acculturated within the military but also included within the law so that there's a grounding that just can't be changed by the whim of an election result.

Brian: There we leave it with Paula Neira, Navy veteran and clinical program director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Transgender Health. She played both an integral role in repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and in this weekend's launch of the USNS Harvey Milk. Thank you so much for joining us. Happy Veterans Day.

Professor Neira: Thank you so much for having me, Brian. Happy Veterans Day.

 

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