Serving in Silence? Australian LGBT servicemen and women

304 Pages·2018·1.274 MB·English

by  Noah Riseman, Shirleene Robinson, Graham Willett

Noah Riseman specialises in the histories of marginalised people
in the Australian military, particularly Indigenous and LGBTIQ
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 rang-
ing 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.

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.
ISBN 9781742235851 (paperback)
9781742244143 (ebook)
9781742248561 (ePDF)
A catalogue record for this
book is available from the
National Library of Australia
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. Photograph by 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.
Contents
Introduction 1
SILENCES AND DISCRETION, 1944–1973 13
Brian McFarlane 17
Carole Popham and Christina Dennis 38
Julie Hendy 59
Wally Cowin 78
BANS AND WITCH-HUNTS, 1974–1992 97
Susie Struth 102
Richard Gration 117
Yvonne Sillett 138
Mark 157
FROM TOLERANCE TO INCLUSION, 1993–2018 175
David Mitchell 181
Matt Cone 200
Bridget Clinch 220
Vince Chong and Ellen Zyla 241
Acknowledgments 268
Notes 271
Bibliography 277
Index 281

Introduction
The rain cleared just in time for the 2017 Sydney Gay and
Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. A crowd of 200,000 onlook-
ers 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 subcul-
tures 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 hier-
archy’s decision to permit its members to march in Mardi Gras
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Serving in Silence?
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 under-
standing of why LGBT ADF members and their allies wanted
to march in uniform, as well as why the ADF hierarchy has sup-
ported 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 to 2012,
‘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 oppor-
tunity 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 Lead-
ing 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 inclu-
sive 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
2
Introduction
parade is no different to representing the Air Force at any cul-
tural 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 discov-
ered. 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 and the 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 inter-
sex 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 115 inter-
viewees was intersex, which reflects their small percentage of the
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Serving in Silence?
population at large (estimated at 1.7 per cent by Intersex Human
Rights Australia – 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 ques-
tions. On the surface, that LGBT people would opt to join an
institution that explicitly banned their participation is perplex-
ing. 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 inter-
sect? What toll did hiding their sexuality or true gender identity
take? We map the impact of homophobia and transphobia, both
subtle and overt. We consider the emergence of LGBT service
organisations that have supported efforts at institutional change
and provided valuable support to members. We ask the key ques-
tion: how inclusive has the ADF become towards its LGBT
members?
LGBT military service, past and present, challenges stereo-
typical ideas about the military, soldiers and Australia’s Anzac
mythology. Military sociologists describe armed forces as insti-
tutions that ‘celebrate male power, particularly the male warrior,
and devalue all things feminine, produce the kind of masculinities
and femininities that are asserted in national gender hierarchies’.7
The ADF has traditionally reflected (white) values of martial
masculinity, which trace back to the Anzac legend, shaping ideas
of Australian identity and nationhood.8 For over a century pol-
iticians have exploited the Anzac legend to suit their agendas
and promote their worldviews. Yet, it has been especially since
Prime Minister Bob Hawke that the politicisation of Anzac has
morphed into what the Australian National Dictionary defines as
Anzackery: ‘the promotion of the Anzac legend in ways that are
perceived to be excessive or misguided’.9
4