Historic Settlement for LGBTQ Veterans Discharged by Pentagon
The Pentagon has agreed to make it easier for LGBTQ veterans booted out of the military for being gay to upgrade their discharge paperwork.
The U.S. Department of Defense has reached a historic settlement with more than 30,000 LGBTQ veterans discharged under the now-defunct “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
A group of five LGBTQ veterans who were discharged between 1980 and 2011 under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and its predecessor policies — which categorically banned any LGBTQ person from serving — sued the department last year in federal district court.
They claimed that they were harmed by the Pentagon’s failure to grant them “honorable” discharges or remove biased language specifying their sexuality from their military records after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed.
Previously, individuals dismissed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” who wanted to update their records had to undergo a complicated, years-long legal process, as the Pentagon would not simply update their files to change their discharge statuses, reported The Guardian.
Many of the 13,500 people discharged under DADT, which was in effect from 1994 to 2010, have already received upgraded discharges.
But a significant number are still struggling to upgrade their discharge status or amend their paperwork to remove references to sexual orientation. Additionally, about 29,000 gay, lesbian, or bisexual service members were discharged under predecessor policies and face many of the same concerns about their discharge statuses and paperwork.
The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit claimed that the Pentagon’s failure to update their service records has led them, and more than 30,000 other veterans discharged under anti-gay military policies, to be “outed” by LGBTQ-specific indicators on their papers and to face discrimination whenever they present their discharge papers when seeking employment, or to obtain higher education, home loan financing, and health care benefits.
The plaintiffs also argued that by including and refusing to remove information about their sexual orientation, sexual conduct, or marriages to other people of the same sex on their discharge papers, the Pentagon is violating their right to privacy, due process, and equal protection under the law.
Rather than go to trial, the Pentagon decided to settle the lawsuit.
The settlement will allow those discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” or similarly discriminatory policies to easily update their paperwork to remove mentions of their sexuality by visiting the Department of Defense website and requesting updated paperwork.
The settlement is expected to be approved by a federal judge in 75 to 90 days, permitting veterans to make such requests as early as this summer.
“This is not about determining what the policy should be — Congress already determined, more than a decade ago, that people were discriminated against and they shouldn’t have been,” Lori Rifkin, litigation director for Impact Fund, one of two legal nonprofits that represented LGBTQ veterans in the lawsuit, told NBC News.
“This is about recognizing that all of that discrimination by the government has had lasting impacts on tens of thousands of people for years and about finally getting that wrong corrected and finally giving people the honor and recognition they deserve.”
Lilly Steffanides, a U.S. naval veteran who was dismissed under a pre-DADT policy, categorized their discharge as “unjust,” arguing that the LGBTQ exclusion policy had stripped them of their dignity and ability to access benefits they had earned.
“This settlement is not just about correcting records,” Stefanides said in a statement. “It’s about restoring the honor and pride that LGBTQ+ veterans have always deserved but were denied.”
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