Speaker 1: But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2: And then I got called in and they sat me
Speaker 2: down and they just said, we've discovered evidence that leads
Speaker 2: us to believe that you may be homosexual. What do
Speaker 2: you have to say to that? And I said, it's
Speaker 2: not true. Then they asked me to name men that
Speaker 2: I had dated as some sort of evidence or proof
Speaker 2: that I wasn't homosexual. My sponsor at the navel kme
Speaker 2: Me was my tennis coach, and she was a lesbian
Speaker 2: and she had a gay roommate, and I gave them
Speaker 2: his name. It was enough for me to lie about
Speaker 2: myself to investigators and to people to protect my own career.
Speaker 2: I hated the idea that my friends and family were
Speaker 2: being forced to lie on my behalf.
Speaker 1: As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
Speaker 1: I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
Speaker 1: ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
Speaker 1: that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
Speaker 1: are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll learn about the centuries old ban
Speaker 1: against homosexuality in the US military. We'll hear how Zoe
Speaker 1: Dunning fought to end that ban, and we'll learn how
Speaker 1: Zoe's fight to end the ban made her one of
Speaker 1: the only openly gay service members in the United States
Speaker 1: Armed Forces for years. For My Heart podcast, I'm Jordan
Speaker 1: and Solves and this is what we loved. I think
Speaker 1: for so many queer people, the first time we actually
Speaker 1: stand up for ourselves is when we come out, when
Speaker 1: we tell the people in our life, I can't betray
Speaker 1: myself anymore so that you can feel comfortable for me.
Speaker 1: That was coming out to my family. I was scared, terrified.
Speaker 1: Actually I didn't want to be rejected, but I was
Speaker 1: also tired of living a double life. I mustered up
Speaker 1: every ounce of courage I could possibly find and just
Speaker 1: came out, sort of like ripping off a band aid.
Speaker 1: In my small world, I didn't know anyone who had
Speaker 1: stood up for themselves in that way. My next guest,
Speaker 1: Zoe Dunning, has a story I wish I knew when
Speaker 1: I was coming out. There's this fearless quality to her.
Speaker 1: She was a lesbian in the military during her time
Speaker 1: when queer people were banned from serving openly, and she
Speaker 1: stood up for herself and many other queer service members
Speaker 1: by coming out in defiance. How did she gain that confidence?
Speaker 1: It was a long journey of self discovery that began
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one when she got into the highly
Speaker 1: prestigious United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. At that point,
Speaker 1: she didn't even know she was a lesbian yet. But
Speaker 1: it was there, at seventeen years old, that Zoe began
Speaker 1: a military career that would change American history.
Speaker 2: I showed up not really knowing what I'd gotten myself into.
Speaker 3: I remember.
Speaker 2: Learning very early that the key to success at the
Speaker 2: Naval Academy was to not be known, which was impossible
Speaker 2: to do as a woman because in my entering class,
Speaker 2: only one hundred of us were women. So you immediately
Speaker 2: stand out, and you're in.
Speaker 3: A fish bowl.
Speaker 2: So everything you do, everything you say, is noticed. And
Speaker 2: there were a lot of subliminal and not so subliminal
Speaker 2: messages to us that you don't belong here, and that
Speaker 2: permeated the entire culture of the organization. At this time
Speaker 2: in history. The military's policy was not only can you
Speaker 2: not be gay or lesbian or in heaven forbid, transgender,
Speaker 2: but you are so threatening that we are going to
Speaker 2: spend lots and lots of money to seek you out
Speaker 2: and investigate you and discharge you. We will hunt you down,
Speaker 2: following people around, intercepting male confiscating diaries, listening in on
Speaker 2: phone calls.
Speaker 1: Wow, well, before we get to that, Zoe, what did
Speaker 1: you actually like about the naval account of.
Speaker 2: One of the things I really loved about being there
Speaker 2: was the sense of being part of something bigger than myself.
Speaker 2: I was part of this institution, this leadership development, and
Speaker 2: it felt proud to be part of that tradition, to
Speaker 2: be part of that organization.
Speaker 3: The other thing I.
Speaker 2: Really liked about it was my sports teams, so I
Speaker 2: immediately joined the basketball team when I was a freshman.
Speaker 2: My mom died that September, and the basketball team kind
Speaker 2: of became my family. They really reached out and embraced
Speaker 2: me in a way of giving me a sense of belonging,
Speaker 2: and it just felt very much like home. When I
Speaker 2: was with my teammates, I felt very safe with them.
Speaker 1: So now tell me a little bit about how you're
Speaker 1: discovering your sexuality and making friends at the same time.
Speaker 2: On the basketball team, we had to come back over
Speaker 2: Christmas break my freshman year, so we stayed at the
Speaker 2: home of the officer representative for our team, and I
Speaker 2: noticed a couple of the women were particularly affectionate and
Speaker 2: attentive to one another, and I wasn't really sure what
Speaker 2: to make of that. It didn't seem to really bother me.
Speaker 2: It intrigued me a little bit, and I wasn't sure
Speaker 2: whether I'm interpreting this behavior correctly or not. And my
Speaker 2: friend Connie was one of them, and the head manager
Speaker 2: had a little bit too much to drink one night,
Speaker 2: her lips got a little loose with a little Jack Daniels,
Speaker 2: and she started asking me, like.
Speaker 3: What do you think of Connie and that gal?
Speaker 2: She said, well, don't you think there's a little weird
Speaker 2: like how affectionate they are with each other? And I said, no,
Speaker 2: that's fine by me. And she was testing me out
Speaker 2: just to see what my reaction was, and once I
Speaker 2: expressed that I didn't really care that much, or that
Speaker 2: I wasn't freaked out by it or grossed out by it,
Speaker 2: she proceeded to come out to me as lesbian herself,
Speaker 2: and then she proceeded to tell me about every other
Speaker 2: lesbian on the basketball team and all the dynamics of
Speaker 2: who whom and you know where there were riffs between
Speaker 2: you know, two players who had dated but now had
Speaker 2: broken up. And I got the whole lowdown, and I
Speaker 2: remember at the time feeling two very distinct feelings. The
Speaker 2: one feeling was a sense of closeness and feeling honored
Speaker 2: that she trusted me to share this information because I
Speaker 2: knew immediately that this information was very dangerous. And then
Speaker 2: I immediately felt fear for the fact that I knew
Speaker 2: this information, because I felt fear for my friends and
Speaker 2: you know, teammates who I knew were going to be
Speaker 2: at risk for investigation or discharge. So that coming out
Speaker 2: to me entered me into this world of the secret
Speaker 2: society of lesbians at Annapolis, or at least on the
Speaker 2: basketball team. So she reminded me not to ever tell
Speaker 2: anyone or people would lose their scholarships and get kicked out.
Speaker 2: She reminded me that if I did get called in
Speaker 2: by investigators, that I had the right to remain silent.
Speaker 2: She reminded me that if I was called in by investigators,
Speaker 2: that I should never ever throw another teammate.
Speaker 3: Under the bus or another woman under the bus.
Speaker 2: That we were going to like black arms and keep
Speaker 2: our secret together and no one should reveal it. And
Speaker 2: so I felt like somewhat like a honored those in
Speaker 2: this little secret society, but also scared for them, and
Speaker 2: then also a little bit for myself because I didn't
Speaker 2: really know about myself at the time. It wasn't until
Speaker 2: a couple months later that I finally realized that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: actually I am lesbian too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me about that. How did you realize that?
Speaker 2: Manager of the basketball team, they decided to get a
Speaker 2: bunch of us together who were in town for this training.
Speaker 2: We spent the night in this house, and I met
Speaker 2: one of these volleyball players who was a classmate of mine,
Speaker 2: and I just really became very enamored by her. And
Speaker 2: that night that we were there in this home, we
Speaker 2: were kind of lying on the floor next to each
Speaker 2: other and we started chatting a bit and getting to
Speaker 2: know each other, and I asked her a little bit
Speaker 2: about her childhood or her time before the academy, and
Speaker 2: she shared that she had a really difficult relationship, strained
Speaker 2: relationship with her mother, and I asked her a little
Speaker 2: bit more about that, and she shared with me that
Speaker 2: her mom had made her see a psychiatrist and I
Speaker 2: listened a little bit more, and I said, why would
Speaker 2: your mom force you to see a psychiatrist? And she said, well,
Speaker 2: she didn't agree with my lifestyle, and lifestyle was code
Speaker 2: for being gay. But I wasn't sure, and I was
Speaker 2: too afraid to ask, because then I was essentially putting
Speaker 2: her in a position of coming out to me, because
Speaker 2: we have this thing called the honor code, and you
Speaker 2: can't like cheat steel. So I didn't ask any further questions,
Speaker 2: but I got contextually what she was trying to tell me,
Speaker 2: and we ended up kissing. I had my very first
Speaker 2: kiss with a girl on the floor of this house,
Speaker 2: with or five other women in the room asleep while
Speaker 2: we whispered and chatted with each other, and she and
Speaker 2: I became girlfriends and then had to hide our relationship
Speaker 2: for the remaining three years that we were at the academy.
Speaker 4: What did the kiss feel like?
Speaker 2: It felt like coming home when I kissed her.
Speaker 3: Wow, it really felt.
Speaker 2: Like coming home. It felt natural, It felt good. I
Speaker 2: felt excited and tingly. I felt scared that what this
Speaker 2: meant for me and for us, and what it would
Speaker 2: mean for how I would have to, you know, conduct
Speaker 2: myself at the academy and that I would have to
Speaker 2: hide this. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.
Speaker 2: Imagine like experiencing your first love and knowing immediately that
Speaker 2: that could cost you your scholarship.
Speaker 3: I had no backup plan.
Speaker 2: There was no money for college otherwise, so it was
Speaker 2: particularly valuable for me to keep that scholarship.
Speaker 1: So you're in a relationship with a woman, you're discovering
Speaker 1: your sexuality. Were you able to tell anyone besides your
Speaker 1: girlfriend and the basketball team.
Speaker 2: You were very careful who knew, and in general, I
Speaker 2: would never let anyone know who I didn't know one
Speaker 2: hundred percent was lesbian themselves. I didn't have much exposure
Speaker 2: to the gay men at the academy at that point
Speaker 2: in time, just pretty much the lesbians on the sports teams.
Speaker 3: That was the only people who knew, the only people
Speaker 3: I would admit it to.
Speaker 2: It was almost this weird power dynamic where you never
Speaker 2: allowed someone to know that you were gay that was
Speaker 2: straight themselves, because there was this fear that they could
Speaker 2: turn you in and there's nothing you could do about it.
Speaker 1: Well, were some of the hurdles that you would go
Speaker 1: through to keep this a secret.
Speaker 3: Oh, gosh.
Speaker 2: When I was at the academy, both my girlfriend and
Speaker 2: I dated men to try to cover up really that
Speaker 2: we were lesbian. And it was this tricky game that
Speaker 2: I had to play where I wanted to be seen
Speaker 2: dating a guy to throw off suspicion. So I had
Speaker 2: I think, two different boyfriends when I was at the
Speaker 2: Academy while I was dating my girlfriend that would go
Speaker 2: out on dates with but I didn't want to get
Speaker 2: too far physically with them, so I would kiss with them,
Speaker 2: I would make out with them, but I didn't want
Speaker 2: to do anything more than that, and eventually they would
Speaker 2: get grow tired of it and move on. But you
Speaker 2: were playing this game all the time to sort of
Speaker 2: throw off suspicion. Also, Julie and I were very careful
Speaker 2: how often we were seen talking to each other in public,
Speaker 2: so we would literally see each other and not talk
Speaker 2: with each other because everyone would see us talking together
Speaker 2: and that might create suspicion. We were like, you know, eighteeneen,
Speaker 2: twenty years old, and we were faced with these moral
Speaker 2: and ethical dilemmas of who are you loyal to? What's
Speaker 2: the right thing to do in these situations?
Speaker 1: Do you.
Speaker 2: Tell the truth or do you lie knowing that the
Speaker 2: truth will ridiculously harm someone and end their career for
Speaker 2: a reason that has absolutely no bearing on their ability
Speaker 2: to do their job.
Speaker 1: It's nineteen eighty five and Zoe Dunning has successfully graduated
Speaker 1: without being added. By this point, she and her first
Speaker 1: love were assigned to different cities and eventually broke up,
Speaker 1: but the band was still taking a toll on her.
Speaker 1: She witnessed one of her closest friends from the bass
Speaker 1: ketball team get investigated and then kicked out. Knowing that
Speaker 1: she could lose her career too, Zoe was in a
Speaker 1: constant state of anxiety to repay their scholarships. Naval Academy
Speaker 1: graduates are required to serve five years of active duty
Speaker 1: after graduation. Zoe's first assignment after graduation was on the
Speaker 1: USS Lexington as a supply Corps officer. While on that ship,
Speaker 1: she started experiencing harassment due to suspicions that she was
Speaker 1: a lesbian.
Speaker 2: The challenge with not being out is that people could
Speaker 2: harass you and you couldn't really do anything about it.
Speaker 2: So I remember, for example, I was on board ship
Speaker 2: and there were three or four or five other women
Speaker 2: in the wardroom who were also lesbian. There is a
Speaker 2: book on the quarterdeck that has the pictures and names
Speaker 2: of every officer on the ship. In that book of
Speaker 2: officers the handful of women that they suspected to be lesbian,
Speaker 2: and they weren't far off. Someone had an handwritten pen
Speaker 2: scribbled Dyke or Lesbo next to our names and our photographs,
Speaker 2: including myself. I was like, oh shit, this isn't good.
Speaker 2: And then I immediately went to see whether they had
Speaker 2: written it next to anyone else's name. And I'm flipping
Speaker 2: through the pages and I'm flipping through the pages and
Speaker 2: I can't react physically because I'm standing on the quarterdeck.
Speaker 2: People are coming on and off the ship. I just
Speaker 2: have to look very professional. And when I first saw it,
Speaker 2: I just flipped it closed and put it back underneath
Speaker 2: the podium.
Speaker 3: To think about it, to think about what I needed to.
Speaker 2: Do, and made sure that no one else on the
Speaker 2: quarterdeck during my watch looked at it or opened it up.
Speaker 2: My mind was racing. I was like, how many people
Speaker 2: have seen this already? How long has it been like this?
Speaker 2: What do I do do I leave it as is
Speaker 2: and pretend it never happened, and I hope it goes away.
Speaker 2: Do I take it to the admin officer and demand
Speaker 2: that they replace the book? Do I leert the other
Speaker 2: women and let them know that their names and faces
Speaker 2: have been graffitied with these comments? So I decided that
Speaker 2: the thing that's going to draw the least amount of
Speaker 2: attention and yet protect us from anyone else seeing this
Speaker 2: was to just tear those pages out of the book.
Speaker 2: And I did when no one was looking, I know,
Speaker 2: quietly tore those pages out of the book. I put
Speaker 2: them in my pocket and I left, and I don't
Speaker 2: know if I shredded them or took them off the
Speaker 2: ship and threw them away. At home, I alerted the
Speaker 2: other women that this had happened so that they knew,
Speaker 2: and eventually, a couple of weeks later, I noticed that
Speaker 2: there was a new book. Someone had noticed the missing pages,
Speaker 2: and they'd replaced the book and there was no more
Speaker 2: graffiti added to it. That was an example of you're
Speaker 2: getting harassed, but you can't report it because if you do,
Speaker 2: then you bring more attention to yourself and people will
Speaker 2: be like, well, why did someone write dyke next to
Speaker 2: your photograph? Instead of the people who did it being
Speaker 2: investigated or being punished for it.
Speaker 1: While Zoe was on active duty in the military. The
Speaker 1: ban on LGBTQ people meant in depth investigations into whether
Speaker 1: they had ever engaged in quote, homosexual conduct. The military
Speaker 1: keeps no records of just how much these investigations cost taxpayers,
Speaker 1: but from nineteen eighty two to nineteen ninety two, taxpayers
Speaker 1: spent five hundred million dollars on the replacements for men
Speaker 1: and women who were discharged because of their homosexuality. Zoe
Speaker 1: herself had never been at the center of any of
Speaker 1: these kinds of investigations until she was transferred to Arlington,
Speaker 1: Virginia for a job that required top secret security clearance.
Speaker 2: I show up for my first day with my orders
Speaker 2: reporting for duty from my final job on active duty
Speaker 2: in the Navy at the Naval Security Station, and one
Speaker 2: of the first things they informed me is that I
Speaker 2: would need not just a top secret security clearance, I
Speaker 2: needed an SCI which is called special Compartmentalized Information. I
Speaker 2: was doing contracting for some top secret items. I had
Speaker 2: to read the top secret message traffic, so I needed
Speaker 2: the security clearance in order to do my job. And
Speaker 2: my heart sank because I had heard of others going
Speaker 2: through security clearance investigations, And then I got called in
Speaker 2: and they sat me down and they just said, we've
Speaker 2: discovered evidence that leads us to believe that you may
Speaker 2: be homosexual. What do you have to say to that?
Speaker 2: And I said it's not true. Then they asked me
Speaker 2: to name men that I had dated as some sort
Speaker 2: of evidence or proof that I wasn't homosexual, and I
Speaker 2: gave them the name of my sponsor at the navel
Speaker 2: came was my tennis coach, and she was a lesbian
Speaker 2: and she had a gay roommate, and I gave them
Speaker 2: his name as evidence of someone that I had dated,
Speaker 2: so that I could immediately call him and let him
Speaker 2: know that they might be calling him and that we
Speaker 2: had dated and he needed to tell them that, And
Speaker 2: they all protected me, and those who did know that
Speaker 2: as lesbian did not tell the investigators that information. But
Speaker 2: I remember the sick feeling that it was enough for
Speaker 2: me to lie about myself to investigators and to people
Speaker 2: to protect my own career. I hated the idea that
Speaker 2: my friends and family were being forced to lie on
Speaker 2: my behalf.
Speaker 3: It felt wrong.
Speaker 2: It felt like that was an unfair burden to put
Speaker 2: on my friends and family, and they did it for me,
Speaker 2: but I also felt physically ill at this idea. I
Speaker 2: got a call from my commanding officer several months later
Speaker 2: telling me to come see him. And when you're in
Speaker 2: the military and you're closet and you're gay and your
Speaker 2: commanding officer does not tell you why they want to
Speaker 2: see you, but they want to call you in to
Speaker 2: talk to you, immediately my thought goes to, they found out.
Speaker 3: They're going to kick me out. This is my last
Speaker 3: day in the service.
Speaker 2: Something happened, someone said something, they caught something, they read something.
Speaker 4: This is years of having this feeling.
Speaker 3: Every single day.
Speaker 2: It's it's almost like a drip drip drip, every single
Speaker 2: day of fear that this is going to be my
Speaker 2: last day. It's somehow they're going to find out. And
Speaker 2: so every every request, every note, every come speak to me,
Speaker 2: You're like, this is it. They found out. I'm going
Speaker 2: to get kicked out. And so I went to my
Speaker 2: commanning officer. I showed up in his office and he
Speaker 2: reached out his hand and he's like, congratulations, your security
Speaker 2: clearance came through.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I like every muscle in my body that had
Speaker 2: been tense just sort of like released in that moment,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't believe it. And I shook his hand
Speaker 2: and he was smiling like I'd entered some you know,
Speaker 2: secret society of people who'd you know, passed the test
Speaker 2: and I got my clearance. But it really did contribute
Speaker 2: to me applying to business schools because I knew that
Speaker 2: I wanted to get off of active duty. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to live this lie every single day that I
Speaker 2: went to work.
Speaker 1: It's now nineteen ninety one and Zoe is in her
Speaker 1: late twenties. She's completed her five years of obligatory service
Speaker 1: to the Navy, and now she had a choice. She
Speaker 1: could leave the Navy or join the reserves, an option
Speaker 1: where she could still serve but not have to be
Speaker 1: full time. She chose to join the reserves and work
Speaker 1: toward her MBA at Stanford Business School. The extra money
Speaker 1: from the military was helpful in paying for grad school.
Speaker 1: At this point, she had spent her entire adult life
Speaker 1: in the closet. She was tired of living a double life,
Speaker 1: and it was at Stanford where she started coming out
Speaker 1: to new friends.
Speaker 2: When I first got to Stanford, I wasn't sure how
Speaker 2: out I was going to be. I knew I didn't
Speaker 2: have to be closeted like I had been when I
Speaker 2: was on active duty in the Navy, but I wasn't
Speaker 2: sure how safe it was to be out. This was
Speaker 2: still the early nineties. The workplace was not necessarily that
Speaker 2: open to gays and lesbians. And I had a classmate
Speaker 2: come out in the orientation week and one of the
Speaker 2: public gatherings that we had, and that gave me confidence
Speaker 2: to start to come out myself. And eventually, in my
Speaker 2: second year business school, I was like the co chair
Speaker 2: of the Pride group at Stanford Business School. And then
Speaker 2: Clinton was running for office and he announced that he
Speaker 2: was going to open up the military for gays and lesbians,
Speaker 2: and I got so excited. I was thrilled. I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, so much courage, Like he's actually going
Speaker 2: to eliminate this policy that prevents gays and lesbians from serving.
Speaker 2: And then he started to backpedal. He started to hedge
Speaker 2: his comments in public and in the news, and right
Speaker 2: before his inauguration, I came to find out about a
Speaker 2: political rally just down the road from Stanford. There was
Speaker 2: a fellow business school student. He was holding this rally
Speaker 2: to essentially encourage Clinton to do the right thing and
Speaker 2: to allow gays and lesbians to serve. And I called
Speaker 2: up the organizer to get a little bit more details
Speaker 2: about when and where, and he asked me why I
Speaker 2: was interested in and I said, well, I'm a lieutenant
Speaker 2: in the Navy Reserves and I've had of secret life
Speaker 2: for all these years being a lesbian, so I'm glad
Speaker 2: you're having this rally. And he somewhat off handedly said, well,
Speaker 2: do you want to speak at the rally? And I said,
Speaker 2: oh god, no, no, no, no, that's i don't even
Speaker 2: want to make a sign like I'm afraid of being
Speaker 2: seen in the audience at this rally, much less taking
Speaker 2: the lectern and speaking publicly. And this was about three
Speaker 2: days before the rally, and I have the phone, but
Speaker 2: the question that he posed kept repeating itself in my head.
Speaker 2: I kept thinking to myself, well, if I could speak,
Speaker 2: what would I say? And the words just came flooding
Speaker 2: to me, like talking about what the experience was like
Speaker 2: to be the lesbian, talking about the hypocrisy of the
Speaker 2: military being about integrity and honor and telling the truth,
Speaker 2: and yet we have this policy that forces people to
Speaker 2: lie about who they are in order to continue to serve.
Speaker 2: And the speech just started forming itself in my head.
Speaker 2: So I called the organizer back up somewhat spontaneously and said,
Speaker 2: does that offer to speak still valid? Is that still open?
Speaker 2: And he said absolutely, and I said I'd like to
Speaker 2: speak at the rally. I wasn't exactly sure what I
Speaker 2: was going to say or how much I was going
Speaker 2: to come out, but I showed up that morning. I
Speaker 2: didn't have any legal counsel, I didn't have any coaching.
Speaker 2: I just had written this speech from my heart about
Speaker 2: what it was like to serve in the closet and
Speaker 2: why it was important to repeal this policy. And I
Speaker 2: took the lecture and I said, I'm both a naval
Speaker 2: officer and a lesbian, and I refused to live this
Speaker 2: lie anymore. And with that, the local papers picked it
Speaker 2: up and they began initiating discharge proceedings against me.
Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety three, Zoe Dunning had had enough. At
Speaker 1: a rally in protest of the military band, she gave
Speaker 1: a speech publicly outing herself. The following weekend, when she
Speaker 1: reported for her Navy reserve duty, she was put on
Speaker 1: leave and told that she would have a discharge hearing.
Speaker 1: A three person board would determine whether she would stay
Speaker 1: or whether she would be kicked out.
Speaker 2: I remember the sense of betrayal. I remember the sense
Speaker 2: of a week earlier, they thought I was great. A
Speaker 2: week earlier, I was getting top notch fitness reports. I
Speaker 2: was seen as a contributing member of my unit. No
Speaker 2: one would even think of kicking me out for any reason.
Speaker 2: But then, because they learned who I am, because I
Speaker 2: was honest about who I am, they would immediately just
Speaker 2: turn around and begin discharge proceedings against me to kick
Speaker 2: me out. We had the hearing. It was about two
Speaker 2: day long hearing, and it was unanimous and they really
Speaker 2: had no other choice. They voted unanimously to kick me out,
Speaker 2: which felt like a kick in the teeth. Being honest
Speaker 2: about who I was resulted in them removing me from
Speaker 2: the service. Ironically, I received notification that I had been
Speaker 2: sole for promotion to lieutenant commander. Wow, So after they
Speaker 2: had already unanisically voted to kick me out, they then
Speaker 2: promoted me.
Speaker 1: I feel like that illustrates just how many excellent service
Speaker 1: members were being kicked out.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and how performance had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with what they were doing.
Speaker 1: Even though the discharge hearing had ended in a recommendation
Speaker 1: that Zoe be fired, her discharge still had to be
Speaker 1: approved by the Secretary of the Navy, a process which
Speaker 1: took months. In the meantime, President Clinton announced his official
Speaker 1: position on gays and lesbians in the military, a policy
Speaker 1: called Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Speaker 5: I believe the policy I am announcing today represents a
Speaker 5: real step forward, but I know it will raise concerns
Speaker 5: in some of your minds.
Speaker 1: Donas, Don't Tell was a compromise. It said, we're not
Speaker 1: kicking you out for being gay. We're kicking you out
Speaker 1: for telling us that you're gay, and in telling us
Speaker 1: that you're gay, we're going to presume that you've engaged
Speaker 1: in homosexual conduct, the key phrase having engaged in homosexual conduct.
Speaker 1: With the new policy coming into place, the Navy wasn't
Speaker 1: quite sure what to do with Zoe. She was convicted
Speaker 1: of violating the policy prior to Don't Ask, Don't Tell,
Speaker 1: so now she'd have to face a second discharge hearing
Speaker 1: under the new policy. Zoe was positive that she'd be
Speaker 1: kicked out. She was counting on it. She knew that
Speaker 1: when she lost, she'd appeal and maybe take the challenge
Speaker 1: all the way to the Supreme Court, but everything was
Speaker 1: about to change.
Speaker 2: That was one probably the first dozen don't ask, don't
Speaker 2: tell discharge hearings. Don't ask, totell was a very clever policy.
Speaker 2: It said, we're not kicking you out for being gay.
Speaker 2: We're kicking you out for telling us that you're gay.
Speaker 2: And in telling us that you're gay, we're going to
Speaker 2: presume that you engage in homosexual conduct. So the whole
Speaker 2: purpose of the discharge hearing was to rebut this presumption
Speaker 2: that I engage in homosexual conduct. Now, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to take the stand and lie and say I'm chased,
Speaker 2: or I'm celibate, or I never have or never will
Speaker 2: engage in sexual relations that with someone of the same gender.
Speaker 2: So my defense attorney said, hey, when you came out
Speaker 2: publicly and said you're both a naval officer and a lesbian,
Speaker 2: and you refuse to live that lie anymore, what was
Speaker 2: your intent behind that? And I said, while my intent
Speaker 2: was to talk about who I am, my intent was
Speaker 2: not to create a presumption that I engage in conduct.
Speaker 2: And he said thank you, and we got that in
Speaker 2: the record, and for whatever reason that Board of Officers
Speaker 2: I don't know why. I don't know if it's because
Speaker 2: we were in the Bay Area and maybe they were
Speaker 2: a little bit more progressive.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: If it was just hard for them to hear day
Speaker 2: after day of testimony about how good an officer I was,
Speaker 2: and there wasn't much guidance on what it takes to
Speaker 2: prosecutor defend one of these cases, and they voted unanimously
Speaker 2: to retain me. So it was bittersweet because my whole
Speaker 2: purpose for coming out was to open up the military
Speaker 2: for other gays and lesbians. And because I had won
Speaker 2: my case, I then did not have standing to go
Speaker 2: to federal court. I couldn't sue. I couldn't sue the
Speaker 2: government because I hadn't been wronged because they had retained me.
Speaker 2: So I thought, well, at least I've come up with
Speaker 2: a clever legal strategy that perhaps others can use. The
Speaker 2: Pentagon doesn't like to lose, so they essentially closed off
Speaker 2: my defense strategy from anyone else ever using it. And
Speaker 2: that's how I got set up for this unique situation
Speaker 2: for the next thirteen years, where I was for the
Speaker 2: most part the only openly gay member of the US military.
Speaker 1: Wow, so you win this case and retain your spot
Speaker 1: in the military against this policy. But now every single
Speaker 1: person that is going to be tried for being a
Speaker 1: gay or lesbian can't use the legal argument that you
Speaker 1: used to win. Exactly After two years, Zoe's legal saga
Speaker 1: was over, but she didn't get what she wanted. Instead
Speaker 1: of ending the ban for all gays and lesbians in
Speaker 1: the entire military, she got a ruling that no other
Speaker 1: service member could use her defense strategy, leaving her as
Speaker 1: the only out LGBTQ member of the United States Armed
Speaker 1: Forces for the next thirteen years. This fueled Zoe to
Speaker 1: fight for change. She would become one of the most
Speaker 1: vocal opponents of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Speaker 2: My whole purpose for coming out was to make a
Speaker 2: difference for others, So I want to change the policy.
Speaker 2: So I get involved with an organization called Service Members
Speaker 2: Legal Defense Network, and we started out initially providing free
Speaker 2: legal services to those who are impacted by Don't Ask,
Speaker 2: Don't Tell. You know, helping someone come out without and
Speaker 2: still get an honorable discharge, helping someone who's being investigated
Speaker 2: or harrassed. Then we eventually took on a legislative policy
Speaker 2: role where we were trying to get the policy overturned legislatively.
Speaker 1: During the two thousand and eight presidential campaign, LGBTQ people
Speaker 1: serving in the military was a major political issue. Zoe
Speaker 1: knew that in order to repeal Donas Don't Tell, America
Speaker 1: needed to elect a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress,
Speaker 1: and they did, but there was still one final push
Speaker 1: Zoe needed to get Congress to act. She needed young
Speaker 1: people to call their congressional leaders and to pressure them
Speaker 1: to vote for the appeal. So in twenty ten, her
Speaker 1: team at the Service Member's Legal Defense Network worked with
Speaker 1: Lady Gaga to make a political statement at the MTV
Speaker 1: Video Music Awards that would capture the attention of millions
Speaker 1: of young Americans. Former service members from the organization who
Speaker 1: were fired under Donas Don'tell accompanied Gaga on the red carpet.
Speaker 1: Later that night, she made one of the biggest political
Speaker 1: statements of all time, wearing raw meat as a commentary
Speaker 1: on Donas Don'tell. In her own words, Gaga told the
Speaker 1: pre dead meat is dead meat. Anyone that's willing to
Speaker 1: take their life and die for their country is the
Speaker 1: same You're not gay and dead or straight and dead.
Speaker 4: You're dead.
Speaker 1: The pop culture moment raised awareness around the issue to
Speaker 1: a lot of young people, and at Gaga's urge, they
Speaker 1: bombarded Congress with calls to repeal the law. With pressure
Speaker 1: now boiling up from multiple sides, Congress passed a bill
Speaker 1: to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell on December twenty second,
Speaker 1: twenty ten. Zoe stood right next to President Obama as
Speaker 1: he signed the repeal into law.
Speaker 5: That is why I say to all Americans, yeah or straight,
Speaker 5: who want nothing more than to defend this country in uniform.
Speaker 5: Your country needs you, your country wants you, and we
Speaker 5: will be honored to welcome you into the ranks of
Speaker 5: the finest military of the world has ever known.
Speaker 4: What was going through your mind at that moment.
Speaker 3: It was surreal.
Speaker 2: I actually didn't know when I flew to Washington, DC
Speaker 2: that I would be up on stage with the President.
Speaker 3: I thought it would just be in the audience.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: I got a call from David Hall of Service Members
Speaker 2: Legal Defense Network after the Senate had passed the bill.
Speaker 3: Asked me for my.
Speaker 2: Full name, my Social Security number, and my day to birth,
Speaker 2: and I said, I don't give that out over the phone,
Speaker 2: and he said, just trust us. And when I showed
Speaker 2: up a DC and I saw all these other people
Speaker 2: who had come for the ceremony, I said, did they
Speaker 2: ask you for your full name.
Speaker 3: Social Security number, and date of birth? Wasn't that odd?
Speaker 2: And they said no, no one asked me for that.
Speaker 3: So then I called David.
Speaker 2: I'm like, this must be identity theft because I was like,
Speaker 2: why did you ask me for this information? He said, well,
Speaker 2: we couldn't tell you before because we had to put
Speaker 2: you through a security clearance investigation. But President Obama wanted
Speaker 2: to have two veterans on stage with him when he
Speaker 2: does the signing ceremony, and you're going to be one
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: So I felt incredibly honored. I felt a lot of
Speaker 2: pressure to represent the literally thousands of people who have
Speaker 2: been impacted by don't ask hotell and policies prior to it.
Speaker 2: You so rarely get to have this like one singular
Speaker 2: moment in time where you can declare success. Right, you
Speaker 2: fight and fight and fight over all of these years
Speaker 2: to open up the gates in the military, and you
Speaker 2: can with a stroke of a pen like legislatively accomplish
Speaker 2: your goal. So I knew that I was at this
Speaker 2: moment in history when the President was going to sign
Speaker 2: the most important civil rights legislation of my generation.
Speaker 3: At that point, and out of my honor to sign
Speaker 3: this bill in the.
Speaker 1: Law, the ban on homosexuality dating back to the Revolutionary
Speaker 1: War was over, and by now Zoe had transformed into
Speaker 1: a different person. The young lesbian who once dated men
Speaker 1: at the Naval Academy to hide her sexuality was now
Speaker 1: defiantly out to all of America. She had worked to
Speaker 1: end the ban for her fellow service members and for
Speaker 1: future generations of queer people that would serve after her.
Speaker 1: It's been about twelve years since doontel has been repealed,
Speaker 1: and what do you think is the broader impact of
Speaker 1: this other than the obvious right gays and lesbians can
Speaker 1: serve in the military. Tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: what you think that impact has been.
Speaker 2: I think the importance of the appeal of don't Ask,
Speaker 2: don't tell is so fundamental to what our country stands
Speaker 2: for and for democracy. I've heard veterans described as people who,
Speaker 2: at one point in their lives walked into a recruiter's
Speaker 2: office and signed a blank check to the American people
Speaker 2: payable up to and including their own lives. And so
Speaker 2: this concept that Americans who are willing to give their
Speaker 2: lives for this country have to hide who they are
Speaker 2: or could be kicked out for who they are, for
Speaker 2: who they love, the concept that our country would do
Speaker 2: that feels completely anti democratic, and it also just feels
Speaker 2: wrong from a moral standpoint. And so I think the
Speaker 2: importance of the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is
Speaker 2: sending the signal of acceptance. And so my coming out
Speaker 2: was also an act of love and an act of
Speaker 2: trying to make our country stronger.
Speaker 1: But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolvis. New
Speaker 1: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
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Speaker 1: Our producers are Shein no Zaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff,
Speaker 1: and Joey Patt. Our executive producers are me Maya Howard
Speaker 1: and Katrina Norble. Fact checking by Marissa Brown, original music
Speaker 1: by Steve Bone. Special thanks to Jay Brunson and rock Helllis.
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