Since 1993 when the “don‘t ask, don‘t tell” policy became law, it has dictated the way in which gay and lesbian military personnel have been identified and treated. Although U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently announced the easing of DADT restrictions, the psychological impact that has been experienced by servicemen and women—gay, straight, and transgendered—remains. To discuss this issue and its effect on the military and those serving, we gathered four Chicago School faculty: Dr. Drake Spaeth, assistant professor of clinical counseling; Dr. Paul Larson, professor of clinical psychology; Dr. Kerri Rönne, associate professor of clinical psychology, and Dr. Anthony Petroy, associate professor and dean of Online-Blended Programs.

INSIGHT: Let‘s talk about the psychological impact that this policy has had on servicemen and women, including the 13,000 who have been dishonorably discharged as a result.

Dr. Larson: The impact has been to force men and women who are gay or lesbian to lead a double life. When society as a whole has made significant strides in being able to integrate fully our gay and lesbian people, the military has not done so.

Dr. Spaeth: I was active duty Air Force between 1996 to 2000. We were peripherally aware of DADT, but I did have coworkers whom I suspected were really struggling with this policy and keeping quiet about it. And I could see that it looked like they were certainly undergoing the stress of all of that.

When society as a whole has made significant strides in being able to integrate fully our gay and lesbian people, the military has not done so.

Dr. Petroy: I‘ve seen a lot working with online programs throughout my career in academia. I separated from the service in 1992 before DADT actually came about. I was stationed overseas for the majority of the time. Online programs were very popular with military personnel. One student was stationed at my base, and he always achieved the highest reviews. He was discharged for being gay in the military, and he filed a lawsuit against the military. It really impacted his ability to perform as a student or even in life because it changed the dynamics of his expectations and his belief in not only the military, but in the American way.

INSIGHT: Can you talk more about the impact on the transgender population?

Dr. Rönne: I‘ve known many transgender people with long, eminent military careers. No one ever knew that they were transgender, but I know of several people who have purple hearts and served as Green Berets and were transgender the whole time but living as their biological sex. I know of one young man who, on a whim, joined the military after several years as a cross dresser, and we all thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this can‘t be good.‘ He came back about three months later, and he had been separated. He said that he had taken a dress with him and kept it in his locker hidden under things—a slinky red dress—and at some point, his barrack mates found it. They assumed that he had somehow snuck a woman into the barracks, and he got great acclaim for this; it was like, ‘Yay boy, you go.‘ Eventually this got to superior officers who called him in and, because he was in trouble for that, he said, ‘Well, actually the dress is mine.‘ And they just kind of quietly said, ‘Oh, well, in that case, you can leave. No dishonor, but we‘re just going to separate you.‘

Dr. Petroy: It brings about thoughts about M*A*S*H and watching Klinger.

Dr. Rönne: There are many reasons why transgender people are not allowed to join the military. Many, especially transsexuals, are taking hormones and are considered unfit for duty generally because of the possibility of being in a foreign country where they couldn‘t get their medication, much like being diabetic and insulin dependent would get you out of the military for the same reason. Also many people who are transgender had surgery that may render them looking not exactly like other people. The physical exam requires a genital exam, and if you look abnormal in any way, you‘re not accepted into the military.

Dr. Larson: What has happened since gay liberation is people saying, ‘I want to be who I am and serve at the same time.‘ That‘s what‘s caused the tension that resulted in the DADT policy, which was supposedly a compromise between forces of change and forces of resistance.

Dr. Spaeth: I always heard the rationale that they were afraid of the impact on the morale of a unit. If suddenly there were military members coming out as gay—the fights that it would cause, and if there were prejudicial feelings, it would be those kinds of divisive conflicts that would disrupt the trust and the cohesion of the unit itself.

Dr. Rönne: I think people express fears, some of which are real issues that should be considered and some of which are irrational and mass discrimination. For example, people automatically say, ‘Well, morale will suffer. You‘re going to have men housed together—some are gay, some are straight. They‘ll be sharing bathrooms. This is going to be a disaster.‘ But in reality, any time you go to a health club, you have gay and straight people sharing bathrooms all the time, and how often do you hear of any incident happening that‘s a problem?

Dr. Larson: The argument about unit cohesion was used when we integrated the military with African Americans, and when we brought women into the military. And the solution is not to not do that, but to then provide training and support and leadership to say this is what we‘re doing, and this is why we‘re doing it.

INSIGHT: The Pentagon announced recently that they were changing the policy to make it harder to dishonorably discharge somebody because of sexual orientation. What kind of impact will this latest policy have?

Dr. Larson: I think it‘s significant that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff indicated that it‘s not if we are going to change, but how we are going to change. That was a very clear signal that the very top leadership of the uniformed military services is fundamentally behind this. Now there are obviously going
to be some people who will voice concerns, but the military is an organization where top down following orders is the culture.

Dr. Petroy: I am heartened to see senior leadership in the military courageously acknowledging that it‘s the, ‘right thing to do‘. It stands in contrast to what happened when President Clinton tried to open it up completely. There was such a backlash that he put DADT in place as a compromise. Of course, no one was happy with that, and everybody remembers him for putting in place this awful policy. But he did it because he was trying to have it be more open, and it just wasn‘t flying. Now there‘s been an evolution in attitudes and people who have been feeling more empowered to be supportive of that.

INSIGHT: Those of you who were in the military, was there any training around this issue at all?

Dr. Spaeth: It was taboo, actually. If we were told anything about it, it would be to avoid even asking questions remotely close to it in evaluations and assessments.

Dr. Petroy: You didn‘t want to be associated with any dialogue or any discussion around that just because of the fear or the stigma that came along with that. If you were talking about it, either you were associated with it or you knew something, and so they would call you into quarters to discuss it. I was in one of the three installations that had nuclear weapons and we would have 10-day deployments. When you‘re out there with a group of men for 10 days, and you‘re restricted in your interactions with other people… if you‘re discussing that stuff and someone higher up would hear something like that, it would be detrimental to your career.

Dr. Spaeth: Yeah, I would echo that. There was always the possible threat of demotion if you‘re doing anything that they would disapprove of. It was very rare in the mental health flight for anyone to be given an official order by the head of the mental health clinic who would have to step forward as Lieutenant Colonel Smith as opposed to Dr. Smith. He would have to assume that kind of persona and give you an official order.

INSIGHT: What ethical dilemmas does that set up for mental health professionals?

Dr. Spaeth: There are notorious discussions about the ethical quandaries that active duty military psychologists and mental health professionals face trying to navigate the demands of the APA versus the demands of DOD. One big issue involves informed consent and confidentiality. The fact is in addition to what I like to call the ‘big three‘—danger to self, danger to others, disclosure of child abuse—where we would have to inform clients, we might have to break confidentialityfidentiality. There was a whole list of things that we would have to add to that. If the Office of Security Investigation was investigating some incidents, we would have to make records fully available to them. If their commanding officer would ask for the records, we would have to make those records fully available to them. It always pushed the boundaries of protecting confidentiality as defined by the APA and similar governing bodies. At the same time, the APA supported for the most part the military psychologists position as long as you made APA aware of what your dilemma was every step of the way. In the real sense, the Department of Defense is really who you work for, and that‘s part of the ethical issue there. If you, as a psychologist, feel that the person would benefit from talking about their sexual orientation, you still had to not do that to protect their own interest in remaining employed and remaining in active duty. So there‘s where I think it can potentially become tough.

INSIGHT: Do you have any thoughts about the long-range psychological impact of somebody who has served or who has had to enforce these rules?

There are notorious discussions about the ethical quandaries that active duty military psychologists and mental health professionals face trying to navigate the demands of the APA versus the demands of DOD.

Dr. Larson: I think that those who were discharged because of their sexual orientation will probably have more negative consequences long term, but not by too much from those who just kept a cover all the way through then retired. It would be different. The stigma of being discharged, the lack of veterans‘ benefits that would come with that, are very different than having to live a double life and feeling the tension of needing to hide all the time. Each of those different classes of people will have consequences that are slightly different.

Dr. Rönne: I do know people who have left the military specifically because they wanted to express their gender identity. Oftentimes, as transgender people age, they feel a stronger need to express their true self. So as they get to be middle age, they are just no longer able or willing to hide that any more. They have left long-standing military careers in order to be freer to be who they are.

Dr. Spaeth: It could potentially engender a crisis of identity or selfhood that could go either way. It could be a real positive and empowering movement toward authenticity, or it could potentially be stigmatizing and, again, sharpening the sense of incongruence.

INSIGHT: How do you see your roles as faculty members at a school of psychology dealing with this issue?

Dr. Larson: I stand very much in favor of full and complete integration of people of various gender and sexual orientations into our program, into society, as a whole. I look forward to the time when people who are in the military could be as completely open and well integrated into the communities as the students and faculty who are gay and lesbians here are.

Dr. Spaeth: It‘s important to me also, in terms of teaching diversity to students, that we really tackle that issue and educate students about military culture. Engaging with individuals from that culture is like engaging with individuals from other cultural realities too. I always feel like I‘m in an interesting position as a former active duty member because I‘m both critical of the military on many levels, especially around DADT, but I also feel a loyalty and a defensiveness where the military is concerned.

Dr. Petroy: I think it is critical for us to maintain that integrity of enforcing and working with diversity strongly in the classroom.

Dr. Rönne: We all have a strong duty to deal with issues related to discrimination and stigma in the world in general, and I think the military is part of that. When I teach my course on transgender issues, we talk about the military, but we also talk about many other elements of our society that are unfair and discriminatory to people with gender variance. So I see it as a component of an almost universal problem that is critical for our students to be educated about.