Please ask, please tell

Today, as most anyone with a TV or an internet connection knows, the US Senate voted 65-31 to finally repeal the infamous Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) legislation that prohibits servicemembers from being openly gay in the military, even as it (allegedly) protects them from being ferreted out and harassed by supervisors, etc. Supervisors don't ask about your latent homosexuality, you don't tell them, and everything jerks along in some semblance of normalcy. Of course, the simple fact that no one asks heterosexuals to keep their love-life on the down-low in the military, to hide their wives or girlfriends or boyfriends or husbands, makes this type of legislation at least moderately hypocritical, something that people remark often upon. What doesn't seem to get quite as much attention at times is the underlying attitude that so much of this legislation assumes, that gay or lesbian servicemembers need to be protected by denying who they are.

Bullying and harassment of homosexuals is as old as anything, as old as sexual harassment of all sorts and as old as ridiculously outdated race-related prejudice. It absolutely needs to be smacked down, whenever it appears, wherever it appears. The idea that having homosexuals hide who they really are to protect themselves, however, smacks of patronization. I'm willing to bet that many servicemembers know of several comrades who are more than likely gay, lesbian, and so much more, just as supervisors and military brass know. Bullying and harassment don't end by agreeing to pretend that there's "nothing to see here," by ignoring the qualities of those who are being harassed. Harassment ends when people realize that those whom they are harassing are human beings, just as they are; harassment ends with exposure, with people saying, "Yes, I'm gay" and letting others see just how "normal" (whatever that may mean) they are, letting others see that they're not monsters. To try to give non-heterosexuals some semblance of protection by asking them to pretend that they aren't gay, aren't lesbian, aren't bisexual is useless and counterproductive, not to mention extremely demeaning and insulting.

Repealing DADT is about letting servicemembers serve openly, without having to pretend that they're things and people that they aren't, yes, but in some way it's also about continuing to open dialogues and cultures. It's about opening up simple conversations about lives, simple encounters, that cannot exist when you try to pretend that everything's hunky-dory, that everything would be okay if people who deviate from the majority simply live their lives quietly and suppress those parts of them that are "deviant." It's about not merely tolerating homosexuality, turning a blind eye to it, "winking" at it, but celebrating it openly as the perfectly wonderful and beautiful thing it can be, the same way that heterosexual love can be perfectly wonderful and beautiful. The difference between tolerance and celebration can seem pretty semantic, but the joy and open-hearts-open-arms of celebration--the wild ride of shared life and shared humanity that it embraces--can make all the difference.

There are a lot of things still wrong with the way America, and the world in general, deals with homosexuality, with bisexuality, with, in short, anything different from straight-up monogamous (or serially monogamous) heterosexuality. There are a lot of things still wrong with the way we use, or attempt to use, our military to deal with the rest of the world, with the way that the military deals with minorities, with women, and, yes, with non-straights. For instance, the latest I've seen/read/heard about the DADT repeal that's been swept under the rug is the fact that the bill still explicitly bans these newly open gay soldiers from being able to extend military benefits to their domestic partners or potential legal spouses (for those who live in states where same-sex marriage has been legalized). DADT repeal also does absolutely nothing to address transgenderism, to whatever extent it exists in the military--and it probably exists to a much greater degree than people might be willing to admit, since transgender individuals are generally even less socially acceptable than homosexuals. They bend the common notions of gender even more--what do you call a male-to-female transgender who is sexually attracted to women? Straight male? Lesbian? What pronouns do you use and when and how? (When it's hard to label something, people tend to get a bit antsy.) The idea that gender and biological sex is a stew of hormones, chemicals, and social conditioning, among many other things, that don't always align in the same way doesn't fit well with the ages-old conception of "male" and "female."

That's another topic, for another day. For now DADT repeal is on its way to becoming reality; there's still Obama's signature, then certification and implementation by the Pentagon, which could take who-knows-how-long. This is a positive thing, however, a step in the right direction. These steps do not end with the military. They do not end with the end of harassment. They do not end with the legalization of same-sex marriage. They probably will never fully end. But everything that leads, even incrementally, to celebrating, openly rejoicing in, the wonderful myriad of forms that humanity can assume is something to be happy for--and a kick in the pants, a reminder to never stop loving, celebrating, and fighting for us all.