Conversation about "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue"

[MrFun]

Well, earlier this evening I talked with a gay Marine veteran on the phone for about two hours.

He talked at length about his personal experiences with the military before the days of "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" and how it affected some of his close friends whom he served with.

One story he told was about a guy who became his best friend while they served in the Marines. His best friend was straight, but wanted to pass on as being gay in order to be treated more fairly while hanging out with his best bud. He did not want the guy's other gay friends to know he was straight because he didn't want to be treated as the "token straight guy." The irony of this story is that the straight best friend could have been discharged or whatever for being suspected for being gay because one day at hotel room where they partied with others, fellow Marines walked in on them and the two had overslept together in same bed with close contact.

He also told a couple other stories about his service in the Marines before the days of "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue." One of them is about another close friend who later became a fairly high ranking National Guard officer. This National Guard officer implemented a new kind of sensitivity training for everyone who served under him in how to serve under the "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" policy. The training involved a game where everyone, including straight troops, could not talk about their relationships in course of conversation. So the whole point of the training was to show the effect the policy has on those who are possibly gay or lesbian.

He also talked about how he believes that in the days before "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" that the witch hunts for those who were suspected of being gay (he calls the investigations witch hunts) only added more stress on some of them, on top of whatever other stress they had, such as post-traumatic stress disorder which led some of them to commit suicide. He doesn't believe that "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" is that much better.

I guess I learned new things tonight about gay veterans and the ramifications of the issues they have to deal with just because they happen to be gay or lesbian.

[zakubandit]

Being a veteran of the Army myself I dealt with that policy a few times. I had a soldier who I suspected of being gay, but I didn't care. I grew up with gay friends, I had lived around the country before I joined up, so if a guy was gay hes gay, doesnt bother me any. So when I would chat with him I would just avoid using words that might offend him, or conversations that would make him uncomfortable (he was a bible type too, and a major WoW player) but a real good guy, good head on his shoulders. He got out and become a biology teacher for a high school.

I had alot of lesbians that I knew, I was a tanker so I didnt work directly with any women, but I had alot of friends in other units. Lesbians are basically ignored, by guys that is, because the way most of my guy buddies (and I admit myself) saw the lesbian girls was either 1 of 2 things; one of the guys like my friends Slush and Panzer, or a girl who we can watch makeout and mess around with another girl when they are drunk.

I understand the aspect of dont ask dont tell, because most people in the world are not so open like I am. Alot of soldiers are rough exteriors, we swear, we talk about things, we arent so nice to each other and make jokes. And to combat soldiers, like myself, who have to depend on someone closely...sometimes there are guys who think a gay guy cant do the job. For me, I don't care if the guy next to me likes have sex with 18 year old transgenders...as long as he could pull the trigger when he needed to.

The policy is outdated, and most backing the no gays policies are Vietnam era officers and NCOs. They push that it can ruin cohesion. The only thing I see that would be real problems is drunk guys thinking, 'hey hes gay, maybe he will **** my ****' or just regular gay bashing.

In all....the times have changed.

[MrFun]

Thanks for sharing your own thoughts, zak.

[MrFun]

I accidentally bumped this thread.

[MrFun]

Don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue's impact on job performance

By Gabriel Arana
An Advocate.com exclusive posted June 9, 2009

As Washington stalls on repealing "don't ask, don't tell," a recent Cornell University study confirms what many people had assumed: "DADT" isn't just bad for gay people, it's bad for the military too.

Gay and lesbian study participants who were asked to conceal their sexual orientation performed 20% worse on spatial reasoning tests and 50% worse on physical endurance tests as compared to those who were not given this instruction. The findings have clear implications for the battlefield. Gays and lesbians -- even those who follow the policy -- are prevented from performing optimally, which may affect the readiness of military units.

"It directly counters this argument that 'don't ask, don't tell' allows us to have the highest-performing individuals," said Clayton Critcher, a Ph.D. student in psychology and one of the study's authors. "It affects everyone around them and the general quality of performance."

Researchers instructed gay and lesbian participants not to reveal their sexual orientation while engaging in an eight to ten minute conversation, then asked them to take a spatial reasoning test -- adopted from an Army intelligence test -- and hold an exercise grip for as long as possible. Those asked to keep quiet about being gay in the preceding conversation were able to hold an exercise grip for 11 seconds, compared to an average of 23 for the control group; they also got 20 percent more questions wrong on the spatial reasoning test.

What is especially striking is that study participants did not have to be engaged in a conversation that might relate to sexuality -- for instance, one about relationships or family life -- in order for their abilities to be affected; the effect showed up even when the conversation was about academics or school life.

"There doesn't even have to be a serious, formal conversation," said Melissa Ferguson, a psychology professor at Cornell and the study's second author.

In explaining the study's findings, the authors suggested thinking of the mind as a battery. Concealing one’s sexual orientation requires monitoring one's actions and social environment, tasks that draw on limited mental resources. After the conversation, participants’ “batteries” are lower, causing them to perform worse on an array of tasks.

After a while the effect disappears, though researchers have not determined how long it lasts.

The fact that physical endurance is affected might seem strange, but Critcher explained that physical tasks are mental too.

"After a period of exercise, your body is telling you to stop and you override this," he said.

Critcher and Ferguson stressed that this effect is not about "mental anguish" caused by concealing one's sexual orientation. Even participants who reported they were not fatigued or upset by the conversation still demonstrated the effect.

"It's nothing about participants reporting distress," Ferguson said. "It's about their actual competence."

The study also suggests that the experience of hiding one's sexual identity did not significantly improve performance, though more research needs to be done. Previous work has shown that gays and lesbians who work under "don't ask, don't tell" may fail to receive adequate medical or psychological care for fear of revealing their sexual orientation, but this study is the first to draw a direct link between the policy and performance on tasks that are relevant to military service.

[Riesstiu IV]

More like don't assrape, don't tell! Amirite?

[rah]

I think DADT is a silly policy.
Yes, there's a chance that if everyone was open about it there would be some harassment and some people being jerks about it. Just like when blacks and women were first integrated. But eventually the number of blacks got to be large enough that harassing a black just because he was black would get you a load of trouble from other blacks. With women it probably took a little longer since men weren't as worried about getting the crap kicked out of them but eventually men figured it was not smart to have every female in the service know you harassed other women.
It is my belief that if people started to realize just how many gays were in the military, they might be a little more worried about picking on one. DADT keeps bigots thinking there aren't as many of them so they're isolated and easier to harass. Knowing that there are many out there that might take offense seems to be a better deterent to me.
And asking people to hide something is never good for self esteem. And I think it's dangerous to train people to use guns that might have self esteem issues.

[MrFun]

I just wonder how well straight people in military could cope on daily basis if they could not speak about their relationships that they have with their buds. That sensitivity training the ex-Marine told me about sounds really interesting.

[BeBMan]

I didn't read the thread, but was the title intendet to be a big oxymoron?

[Japher]

Tolerance is not acceptance is not ignorance

The Gov't doesn't seem to know the difference.

[Blaupanzer]

An exercise we used some years ago was to talk about your social life without mentioning your "significant other." For most of us, this is surprisingly difficult. I suspect your Marine veteran was speaking of some variant of that, rather than not mentioning any buds. For gays and lesbians, this is what they must do every day. Note that quite a few of the people thrown in the GLBT bin are also participating in straight life too. Most are "bisexuals," but the Christian types don't see a difference. Their existance confuses these "superstraights" (their motto: "I'm straight. God wants everyone to be straight. Therefore, I only associate with people who are straight.").

If the policy is lifted, the problems will tend to come from superpatriotic, superstraight, righteous Christians. Not sure the services currently have very many "Act Up" types on board.

[MrFun]

I didn't read the thread, but was the title intendet to be a big oxymoron?

The Marine veteran whom I have befriended describes it as "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" because he believes that more clearly diffrentiates today's policy with the policy that existed before.

In days before "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue," soldiers who were gay still obviously served in secrecy but with a major difference - authorities could actively carry out what the Marine veteran refers to as "witch hunts" in trying to snoop out gays and lesbians. They supposedly cannot conduct such "witch hunts" today under the current policy.

So when I first began this conversation with him, he corrected me, saying that it is more accurate to refer to today's policy as "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue."

[MrFun]

An exercise we used some years ago was to talk about your social life without mentioning your "significant other." For most of us, this is surprisingly difficult. I suspect your Marine veteran was speaking of some variant of that, rather than not mentioning any buds. For gays and lesbians, this is what they must do every day. Note that quite a few of the people thrown in the GLBT bin are also participating in straight life too. Most are "bisexuals," but the Christian types don't see a difference. Their existance confuses these "superstraights" (their motto: "I'm straight. God wants everyone to be straight. Therefore, I only associate with people who are straight.").

If the policy is lifted, the problems will tend to come from superpatriotic, superstraight, righteous Christians. Not sure the services currently have very many "Act Up" types on board.

I was only referring to whether or not people can talk about romantic relationships to their buds.

And yeah, what you described sounds very much like what the Marine veteran told me about.

[Blaupanzer]

It is a difficult exercise. All by itself, I'm not sure how good a teaching tool it was. Sympathy for gays over 20 years ago in the military was nonexistant. At least, officially. All were aware that many had been bailed out or helped in tough situations by soldiers the military justice system went after later. But few were willing to do anything about it.

[MrFun]

Man, that sucked.