Lesbian purges in the military

My name is Carla to NOLA and we're going to be talking today about lesbian purges in the military. So why don't we start going around and everybody should just say who they are and when they were in what service I got out in 76 I went in just as I was getting out of high school and now I'm with a group called the women veterans information network. I'm due to go on. And I was in the service about 20 years ago 1960 for eight months in the Air Force and was caught in a purge which completely altered my life and my understanding of the position of women in the world as something I've been working on ever since to try to understand. And I've written quite a bit of poetry are known as a lesbian poet I guess and feminist poet and I'm currently researching women's history.

My name is Sharon Isabelle and I wrote a book called yesterday's lessons. And in my book I talked about some of my experiences in the military and I was in a service in 1960 61. That's about it. I'm Pat and I'm a performer lesbian performer. I was in were dissolved and I'm having a one woman show a national PBS this Sunday called goody goody Stein is back back back and I was in the army Women's Army Corps in 1946 and 27. My name is Sabrina sojourn and I am no local activist and also your moderator today. Welcome women. Well who wants to start in just in terms of like talking about how it was even got into the service what decisions were behind say to

do that. We thought we would go around back strongly logically probably start with now and since I was the first to be in and where most of you were born. We were in a hospital unit and we were sent overseas to Tokyo right after the war and they had a witch hunt there and sent 500 women home for a dishonorable discharge. And one of our kids at 20 we remember we were 20 who very young killed herself when threatened with dishonorable discharge unless she told them the names of 10 of her friends and we know now that that's the age where suicide is problematic. And they did not have the first clue of that and they we were grilled drilled We were guarded by men with sticks with men with guns. We had no idea that we had any rights at all. And of course we didn't then they didn't give us court martials they gave us what they called summary courts martial so you had no attorney you had no defense they didn't even call any witnesses. They just showed you some letters and perhaps some pictures they

had or phone calls that they had monitored and that was that was this an individual or a group basis. Well it was all of us but they called us in you know one at a time with your Executive Officer who are all dykes incidentally. We did not I think maybe we had one straight officer and she didn't last long. They were all stopping bulldyke dykes with men's haircuts. But the whole trip including major Burgess who if she is still alive and listening I hope you fry in hell. Because I feel she's the direct cause of Helen's death. Anyway they were all dykes themselves what's put you somewhat off women even if you're gay and I still carry the scars of that. I have a lot of trouble trusting women. Well women on jobs your supervisors are mean as Al shit as we'll. And so you know it gets hard not to mention your mother. Right it's very hard to love women and not trust them with that indeed is

where I find myself. Why did you join the service to begin with I want to get away from home and I knew it was one giant gay bar and I could hardly wait. Yeah you know it was indeed you know like I walked into the mess hall I think I said it in the film. I walked in I heard voices saying Good God Elizabeth here comes another one and I got into the mess hall there were all these dikes and Ladders those boots than we had and fatigues their feet up on the table saying Hey Henry you know half the SOB you could hardly wait to get past him so you could look like they have to be butch today. I think that's a great duty. Yes I am I must have been. It's 13 years after you in about 1960 and things were much more undercover at that time. But I also joined out of necessity. I discovered that most of the women who had joined were from small towns like I was and whose parents didn't have enough

money to send them to school who were ambitious and who didn't intend to get married right away and joined because that was the only other alternative. So there we all were and I was caught in the tail end of a purge in Washington D.C. and I had a similar experience the off it was the officers who were the most of the women officers who were the most violently anti lesbian. And who are you to do that. They had spies planted throughout the barracks of women who had been caught previously but who had been offered a deal to stay and they would turn in other people who were seen holding hands for instance or spending too much time in each other's rooms and it was not at the look Henry here's another one level it was much more subtle and it was about who was loyal to who and who was God like that with us today and who was hanging out too much together and being more loyal to each other than they were to

the service which I think was a major basis of how they go about splintering us. One friend of mine was in who was lured into it. Set up by a woman who had been caught who had been a recruiter who invited her to her parents home and then made a pass at her. When the woman was reciprocated she was thrown out. So it was there was a whole spy system that operated and the officers were known to be a day and they were more or less in charge of the purges of getting whoever refused to knuckle under and I think that's the basis of what's going on now in what's been going on here right. OK and the story still go on. You know right at this minute there there's some young girl there and I say girl

because we were that is that notion of a lot of them crying her eyes out she tearfully hands somewhere out there. Yeah. Sharon Well I joined the service because it to tell him I was graduating from high school there was some recruiters that that came over to school and stood up in the end we had the flashy uniforms and they they talked us about you know how we could really get good jobs. And I was really really frightened about getting out of high school because I didn't know what I was going to do. And my parents made it real clear to me that they couldn't afford to have me hanging around without work and that I had no skills or anything and no transportation and I lived out in a little small town in Martina's that you really need transportation to get a way to get around you know. And the whole my whole senior year I was just frightened to death because I didn't know what

I was going to do. And I had to you know I had to get some sort of a job. And that's a real real important point to me because I've talked to a lot of women that were thinking about joining the service and I feel that no matter how desperate a situation is that if you stick it out you can find some sort of a chance on the outside. You can find a scholarship or. Just hang in there and you can find some way to take care of yourself and you can have a much better life out of the military. And that's my main point and really the women that I talk to who I try to you know tell me about that because the outside is much easier to survive and then the service. And when I went in the service the thing that got me right off the bat was I couldn't believe how people were treated. I was absolutely I just couldn't believe it. You know we used to stand at attention

in the hot sun it was in Alabama and I saw women stand there and pass out and fall and cracked their heads open and you're supposed to walk over me. You know there for no reason we could think. Yeah I mean it was just incredible just the things that happened or you know the pressure in the barracks you know and. It was like it was really wrong to be friendly with the women and it was like it was made real clear to us that we weren't supposed to even touch each other or get too close to each other because that was wrong you'd be up on charges for being a lesbian and it was it was just the pressure you know of watching your every movement and things like that. And there was a couple in my in my platoon and they were gay and they had to sneak around. But everybody was talking about how they thought that maybe they might be and if they were you know they were going to get really kicked out and harassed. And so yeah there was when I was stationed in Fort Leonard Wood they had

a network called the C I.D. and there were women in our barracks that were CIA agents would say Id stand for our intelligence division. OK. And I was in my I was in my room one day and that woman across the hall commune said hey Sharon you better watch out to see ideas after you. I said What are you talking about. I said Were they going to get me for having pictures of women on the wall. You know I mean everybody that I knew that was gay had to be really sneaky and really clever because they knew that everybody was after him and they knew what would happen to you know you know if you got caught you know and it was. It was just without having to go through that horrendous thing of when you were caught. The trials and things that you do to it just a life in there of trying to survive you know is is really

repressive really bad. You know what time period were you in the service. I was in 1960 61 so about the same time as Judy Wright Yeah. Deborah Well I went in also for a lot of the same reasons that the other women here have been talking about I was just graduating from high school. I wanted very badly to get out of my parents home and not only that but to get out of the whole area where I lived. I felt like you know there was life out there to be lived in and I wanted to be out there in the middle of it but I didn't quite know how to go about getting myself out there. I didn't know it was just overwhelming to think of you know picking up and and going to a new place without you know any of the the resources. Financial or or emotional and the service seemed like an alternative. My father had been in before I was born but he had been in and I had always felt like it had been a real growing experience

for him that he'd learned a lot and so forth and I think that growing up I always saw it as sort of a coming of age that that my father had had. And I kind of I think one element in my decision was that I wanted to prove that that I could do this too that I could you know be as strong or tough or whatever it was that that he was that he had this coming of age and learned and grew so much. And a friend of mine. Going in and this was about a year before I went in. But that just sort of showed me that that was a possibility. And she didn't particularly like it but I wanted something so bad I just thought well she didn't like it but I will. And you know I went I was I was straight at the time or at least I thought I was straight. I came out shortly after I got out in about 70. Let's see I got out of the Air Force in 76 and it was about six or seven months later that that I actually came out during the time I was in.

Looking back on it now I'm pretty amazed that I didn't recognize during that during the time I was in that hey you know I might or might not be quite as straight as I think it was very very obvious. But looking back I realize that you know the the problems I had coming out after you know when I was a civilian it was hard enough for me then just dealing with the homophobia much of which I'm sure came from those three years in the service to have dealt with it at the time and to have had to have you know faced those very real fears of. Being purged and so forth I think that I just didn't quite have it together enough at that point. And being a straight woman I saw it from a kind of a different angle. I remember my first duty station at that time. We had squadrons as a woman you belong to both your duty squadron and your web squadron that is changed in fact it changed during the time I was in. Now women just belong to their duty

squadron but at the time you reported in to your duty squadron commander and also to your web squadron and we were given a briefing by our first sergeant of the West squadron and I remember her telling myself another woman who had come in about the same time as I had but this one particular barracks was where the lesbians lived and that we should all be very careful because it was known that these women would entice young straight women that had just come in and they would entice them up there. They would somehow manage to give them alcohol and whatever and they would entice them into a compromising situation with another woman. They would photograph them and then use that against them. This is what she told us. And there are a lot of young women were dying to get into the room. It was good to get you to answer. OK right now but their intimate Asian methods were unbelievable I can remember going to one of our officers that I sort of trusted and putting my hand on her shoulder and cry you can see my feel the winter will have her uniform stilling

the Pallas Athene on her collar. He said you know what you're going to kill this Captain Dan. I know they're going to kill him with and I don't know why what have we done is it because we don't have her sexual affairs it's not what I said that I can't use that word in the year. So what am I supposed to do drop babies make love in front of them with a man will that satisfy them. Can I go back to my two bit jobs or would you kill my babies too. You know there was that kind of terror that depth of terror that was not so I guess it's like a little bit of broken bone. And there we were trapped in Japan in a funny way so we were kind of from our country to there was no way we thought of calling Walter Winchell I mean really wild things because you didn't know what to do if someone knew there was the faint hope that if someone knew in the big world that maybe you could get some help. And of course when Helen killed herself they had the nerve to give her a military funeral. And we all had to sit there while they blew Taps over coffins.

And that's the way it went and all these women that were obviously gay were persecuted and you couldn't figure out why years later I think I found out I know a bit of the reason MacArthur of course was in charge of Occupy Japan. And we were there essentially to show Japanese women what free American women look like you have to admit he got women the vote in Japan in 10 years. He was remarkable general But anyway so I'm sure that when he that we came off the boat and we were you know in men's haircuts we were very obvious he said you get those dikes out of Tokyo and I don't care how the hell you get them out. I'm positive now. But you know we were 20 year olds Wasn't there some more reasonable way of dealing with us then literally trying to do ranges in drivers to suicide. Besides you know what difference does it make. When they look like women who are working around machinery wear short hair.

Yeah that's all there is to and we are a lot higher than I John in the machinery and we reckon it's broken better at our jobs than anyone could have been I think. We had women that could take less motor apart and put it back together again then it's wanting to use what you know as a vanguard to break new ground and then say you know everything that you just did is completely wrong and deliberately humiliate you and throw you back down to the bottom. Just same thing is done with with black women in the service and black men in the service to break new ground and then say oh no it does not try to find them again. Well it's this not just this country but there are a number of governments both progressive and repressive that have used the rights of women in the lives of women for whatever purpose that they see fit. And if it's in vogue and it helps to get the women on their side to use women's rights and women's energies they will do that here and as soon as they get what they want then that it was just back again you know with the right yeah. And it's important today that we be talking about this that we were

talking about women in the military that we were talking about lesbians in the military as we know we are basically on the verge of you know possibly another war. There isn't a draft that is a registration right now that is going on right now it is not inclusive of women and it's being challenged on that basis. And yet at the same time we have the women of the Norton Sound and possibly other purges pending as well of lesbians from the military. And it seems a contradiction in terms that they want us. And at the same time they're still pushing us away and telling us that we must prescribe certain norms in order to be there. And with that we have an interview with oh well we have a tape about actually what it is. Sabrina it's a news story the women's news did on August 20 5th which will bring us up to date on what happened. Thank you. The Navy has dropped its case against the four remaining Norton Sound crew members accused of lesbianism. According to the ship's captain he dismissed their cases when his attorney

warned it would be difficult to substantiate the charges. Eight women aboard the Norton Sound were originally accused of lesbianism and offense punishable by dismissal from the service. Of the four women who went to trial two were acquitted and two were found guilty. The two convicted say they are not lesbians and that the Navy had no real evidence against them. Now one of the naval officers involved says he doesn't want to discuss dropping the later cases because it might jeopardize those earlier guilty verdicts. According to the women's ACLU defense attorneys the Navy used questionable tactics to make its case and relied on hearsay and innuendo. Two of the prosecution's key witnesses were brought to court from the Navy's psychiatric ward and one star prosecution witness admitted to being the defendant's sworn enemy. To back up unsubstantiated testimony the Navy used equally unsubstantiated material for example. Navy investigators distributed a full list of women recruits names and asked

sailors to check off the names of all homosexuals listed in the American Civil Liberties Union is also questioning the racial aspect of the lesbian Inquisition. When ACLU attorney says it may be significant that the only women found guilty are black and one is a black Muslim. The four whose charges were dropped are white. The ACLU plans to appeal the two guilty verdicts all the way up to the Navy's chain of command in the civil suit will be filed challenging the Navy's homo sexual band and its procedure for prosecuting alleged homosexuals. The six women cleared of charges say they'll stay in the Navy for their full service terms. But all eight accused say they've suffered shame and degradation because of the lesbian trials. One sailor whose charges were dropped says quote She feels like suing because her reputation in the service and in the press has been ruined. That from a woman who didn't even face a series of witnesses attesting to her sexual history. The San Francisco Chronicle claims a USS Norton is Norton Sound as mentors for drug

dealing and violent crimes. If those charges are true it raises questions about the intentions of the media focus on and the Navy's investigations into lesbianism on board with the noted Green Berets discriminate against women. The first woman to attempt to join the Green Berets was denied graduation from the Special Forces school. Captain Kathleen. Quite interesting. Yeah I just think that they had a trial. They had different Thank God. You know there we were with nothing and they were really I think we thought we were scum. We thought that it was a terrible thing to be gay. Yes but what's so bad about what just happened is that even though they had a defense and some that the split between black and white women happened and it and between straight and gay when it happened and then it happens all along the line because everyone will be suspicious of everyone else because everybody knows that the two women convicted are no different than the women who were not connected except that the white woman

will now be able to rationalize and pretend that there is something different about the way that they operate and somehow I don't know if you think about it on your head yeah. And that's why it takes more than just having rights. Everyone must have the rights not just some because what they want to do is to break down the solidarity of the enlisted people that's what happens so that they will be loyal only and not to each other not look out for each of them and be intimidated so that they can be ordered to do things against their very nature that they would never ordinarily do but be so fragmented and so frightened that they would do horrendous things and not have any responsibility as human beings anymore become a cog in a machine. That's why it happens more to women. Because women go in with more of the values civilian values and it has to be broken down more because we have less experience and in the military less experience in the workforce as cogs in a machine.

So it's to make you be docile that this happened as Sharon said you know you're so stunned that there is no justice when you get in there. We've been brought up to believe in justice to believe that you do you know right by someone else. You know love thy neighbor and you're just stunned that none of this is there it's like I can't believe it. You know it really couldn't be. And yet there it is and it's your night and everyone with you is horrified and yet what do you do. So of course is as Judy said is they start you fighting among each other and we got so scared that we didn't know if you could trust your lover. And whenever we went out got pregnant she was so terrified literally. And it was just it was were time and it never stopped one and said if you're thinking of going into the service don't go if you're straight maybe but even then as would you want to watch the show one next one experience many that I had that just

absolutely floored me was that you know our platoon there was a group of us that ran around together there was some black women and white women and we had this thing to where we were allowed out for the first time. And in the service there they were talking about how there was no prejudiced or anything like that. And so we were all going to go out on the town for the first time and we felt real close and real tight because we had been going through basic training in this arena stuff and just before we got ready to go down to Anniston and you know to get our pumps you know the barracks sergeant came out and said look when you go into town you're going to have to follow the rules. You know that they have set up there and they said and we said What are you talking about. And that meant that we couldn't walk down the street together. The black women are not just that men that they had this club called the wack service club where all the women could go in and dance the black women weren't allowed in that in that club. And

also it was that whole thing about the white people writing on the on the front of the bus and black people writing on the back of the bus. Here we were and we lived together and we loved each other and we were told we had to go into the town and respect these really cruel horrible prejudice. And when we said what what if we can't do that you know they said you are in the service. And we say that when you go into that town you have to do what what that town wants you to do. And we couldn't believe it. With a town when a person I was and where to look looked gorgeous because when I was in Jim Crow was still in full force in the army. We were had separate barracks. And the black women and one of the women I knew I gotta say I was disgusted with this I did some college before I went in and I went to her barracks to see her and came on back to mine and the CEO they had Southern white officers training them and the CEO said to me oh we over there she said well you know on Saturday nights they all use cam a sub you can smell it for

miles. What you know I didn't even know what she meant. Well the woman I was in college with certainly I didn't think she was Cam and know what she did other and of course then we discovered we couldn't go into town because it was a Southern town and we did go into town but we had to walk home because the bus wouldn't take us into a cab and it was 10 mile walk. So you didn't do it too often you stuck around the base and hung out together if you could. I want you yeah I want to comment to your comment Pat about maybe go in if you're straight woman I think that that but you have to watch it. Yeah they affect straight women too. I think a lot of the women they get purged are are indeed stray. Yeah and in fact a lot of how the purges get started is some guy wants some particular woman to sleep with him and she she was the Yeah Yeah. So he he says hey this is a let's a gay woman yeah. And like myself I felt very alienated from from the men for an awful lot

of the time I was in because usually you're in situations where there are so many men per so few women. Yeah and they these men have have just gone through basic training where they're taught. To be these little John Wayne's running around and they get together is as groups of them trying to prove to each other that they are indeed these joints and you know it's terrible. You know you're walking around on base you're just constantly submitted to you know all kinds of verbal harassment even worse than that. And so myself and a lot of other women I knew were were just did our best to stay away from those guys. And I think also because of the homophobia that was floating around it felt isolated from each other. We were constantly dealing with trying to prove that stereotype wrong. You know the big thing is that the men believe this that women in the military are either lesbians or whores. And you know both said with them always and then it's always been Yeah. And and so I think myself and other women which we would just try to prove that

wrong and end up like myself I spent an awful lot of my time alone in the library or alone in my room writing. And I've talked to other women that you know spent a lot of their time playing their musical instrument or something and I think that a lot. I was really unhappy because I felt so isolated I didn't really know what there was better than that for me and I hadn't really experienced anything better but. I knew there was something and that's what I was going to really want if it was you know a fiction as it affected us at least at least had women I knew in two women I knew went through the Korean War who were also which ended and affected our sexuality up into our 40s. Very interesting that a lot of us did not have orgasms until we were very almost in our late 30s. So at that age I think when your sensuality is beginning to develop and you told every curiosity of every interest you have is somehow rotten wrong and sick

tainted a disease that it has to affect you and it did indeed. A part of what you were were talking about in terms of of the lesbian straight split is a lot of what happens around here in the real world as well in terms of how the idea of women being close and women caring about one another means automatically that they are lesbians and that's been you know bad and wrong and therefore it you know it sets us up from the beginning you know change has nothing to do with actual act and I think that's what I want to write you know it's just you know something that we all like and enjoy I called affection and caring for what I want to do to each other very well take up for each other. Right and that's what is broken down where. Basically what happens is that the mail service is saying you must be loyal to me and not to each other which is what the

society at large also says and which is why women have such a hard time breaking into any primarily male field which there are a lot of them. So you have women who are working and blue collar jobs you have women who are working in prime management positions who are isolated themselves from other women because they don't you know there's all this thing suspect around them to begin with although it is more acceptable now for at least white middle class women to be in management. All other women are still suspect and again in terms of blue collar positions you have women who are sexually harassed constantly and the same thing happens in the women in the military. I think it's real interesting that the only person to be severely punished for sexual harassment in the service was a woman who was a sergeant in the army who was busted. As well as put it. I think she was also suspended for a couple months from the military and it's from her duty from active duty. And she's the only one who's been

severely punished. All of them have been Miley and all the men have been mildly reprimanded and that Colonel recently was harassing how many women and they all came to testify. And what do they do about him I think they transferred him respect right you know slap basically do that as a real you know don't do this in a funny thank you. Yeah you know I was sorry had all these women harassing you. I think it's one of the things that's really important about what we're talking about also is and again bring it more up to date is what's happening right now with women and terms of the military. I don't know Deborah that you're doing some work around. Draft counseling for women. Well I wouldn't quite say draft counseling women aren't being drafted yet but they are being pulled in by the poverty draft. The reasons that we all went in the recruiters know this too and they really play upon it they you know use travel and and independence and all of those things for women to really really successfully pull women in. And so

we our group is just trying to ask women that have been in the military to send us stories of your experiences the kinds of things that the recruiters won't tell young women that are going in and thinking about joining up because my experience the experience of I think probably most women that have gone in unless they happen to have known people that that were in about the only story that you have to listen to is what the recruiter tells you. And we all know that that's a very very distorted story. So we're asking women to to send us their stories or if if women aren't into writing men to give us a call and we can do a little interview what you're talking about in terms of poor draft and methodology and in terms of what their recruiters do is something that happens with third world people as well. You know it's not the old men as well not just with women. And I think that we need to. Well that's one of the things said a lot of us who are concerned about the

draft that's happening right now this registration are are trying to work on because we knew. I think there's only two things that that the American government learned from Vietnam one is if you're going to intervene you full fledge intervene and you don't you know who's mess around. Yes. You know whatever that means to me and the other thing that they learned is that they can't count on third world working class people to fight people who are just like them. Yeah a lot of what caused the Vietnam War Oh yeah right. War to End was the actions of the end of the working class in the third world men there who are on the front lines. I don't know how many people realize that you know like 75 percent of the forces who are on the front line are working class and they're always happy always to have you. And since I suppose the revolution I mean yeah when they get to go to be cannon fodder in the revolution they could not if you were rich or gentleman or whoever you were you could buy somebody to go in your place and then some poor peanut farmer was dragging around in the furrows you know went not

you right. But I have an idea so I do not sell it so no right will go we will join we will go to the army. If we get in our way then we get the Hariri and we don't go. My learned there always was and that was why did I mention if you were. Telling us. Say yes yes yes but you know again we are you know it's your all it's a woman's prerogative just you know he was you know not in her native right. Judy I wanted to ask you some more about your own experiences in the military and I know I Judy said she's a lesbian poet a damn fine boo. Yes thank you don't have to say or anything will and let's get it. Well but I say that on purpose because I decided after my daughter into the military which took me years to get all that I mean I'm still getting over it we are like you look at your eyes now. Yeah same thing.

Yes. I decided that a way that I could not be gotten as if I simply said everything that anyone could ever catch me on up out front so now get me you know. Right yeah. Now you know get me and you know that a consequence of this is. As that I've done a history of research on the word ball dagger and this connects to the military also that the word bull dagger goes back to a queen of ancient Britain who fought the Romans when they first colonized southern Britain and she almost won she fought during the reign of Nero and the Celtic tribes were gay they had all kinds of gay institutions that the Romans were shocked themselves. They had instituted anti homosexual measures about 150 years before before invading Gaul as a way of masculine izing as they put it their army

and she fought them and they were so frightened by her nameless buta car bulldyke. They drove her name underground and so that on a working class people remembered. To call her name as a curse against as a herd of women well you know that it isn't proud of that. Yes I have that I take well Jack you're like I will die you have my cost from that tradition of that time in fact. The women are taught to amend the military tactics and it was not to like a modern army at all it was much more like Native American. So I mean it's not wound so much Marcil majority. I'd like to address the Book of Ruth and her and poke you and ship her but both the officer and I was wondering why the Army never went after them

where they think thought they were and would it be because even though they were left in from the cold. It would have been an identification of what that meant about that. Yeah but it was a tallit tie in with power and I think women add time travel they still have trouble dealing with power we're learning to deal with it in groups. But then a woman who had power was also terrified what to do with it unless she might use it I'm not trying to excuse them I hate them but they certainly did do just as they were told by the men who were in charge of them or over them. And of course the army too said you must always obey by the by a chain of command. But they were never never never harassed they were transferred. They were well they were officers you see specially leet. Don't ask me why you know most of them had to be a big deal and went through officer training which is nothing. Part of what we're talking about though today's in terms of the things that they are doing to try and get us in

there to begin with. And what's more what appalled me at least in my era and I think still is that a lot of us that went in looked very gay. I mean I think an 8 year old child would have known when we went in we were in men's clothes men's haircuts you know don't tell me the Army psychiatrist didn't know an overtone essential when they saw one. And they said you know do you prefer men or women and we said man of course what's a woman you know. But obviously they knew who they were taking in. I don't question anyone they got us in there. It was kill them. There are women running for granny but each one of them in the era that they were in the curve of what percentage of heterosexuals were paid they were in the women Corps. OK let's take that I don't think in percentages I don't think that that's a possibility. I don't think that it's even relevant and I don't think anyone would

possibly know. How would you know. Yeah I always seem to that is the point of what we're talking about the point is that it is that lesbian is a dyke painting if you will is what is used to keep women in line and to me I don't want to start a dork and you know it just doesn't matter. Doesn't the thing that I put in there is possibly a discussion on the right of the problems are to be discussed and if this women do go into the military be they are straight. What sort of answers would you tell them if they say they're determined to go in. What would what sort of advice would you be able to give them to say. This is what you're going to come up with. This is how you going to cope with it or this possibly how you can change it. You know rather than you know I mean identifying the problems or is it all well and good but perhaps defining some alternative to get rid of the problem such as her sexual harassment and

you know gay harassment or whatever. From my own point of view I do not agree with with the gay part of you which is actually irrelevant to what I'm interested in but something like that I'd be interested if you had it. If like you know each of you was ever in you know right you were in the military. Every came up with ideas of well hey this would be a way to get rid of the problem with this particular person or the situation as a whole. OK thank you. I think part of what you're asking though is not in terms of historical terms it's not possible I think it's more pertinent in terms of what may or could happen now. Who wants to tackle it. Organizations have done the classic way that people have managed to fight back against a state which is what we're talking about and no more. When an organized and

gay people are organized on the outside to offer support groups and information and the ACLU and legal help then the stronger the people will be who are in the workforce the military and not feel helpless and as though they had no human rights whatsoever or only rights if they're white or all of the different divisive tactics that are used and the more of those organizations that would be aware of the recruitment of people into the military and advertise the services that they can give the better off all of us will be. I've got a piece of information which might prove to be a very interesting me if I was straight when I was in the service but I'm gay now and one of the thing that lectures that we got in basic training was you can be a homosexual it's perfectly alright to be a homosexual but it is against the UCMJ so if you get caught it's you know it's your ass. And I was wondering if anyone there you know if the women ever got any any

lecture like that. No no no no it certainly didn't. We got the opposite. We were not. Red faced obvious Dykes saying that lesbianism was horrible and reading it from unable even to meet anyone's eyes is sergeants and what not saying if you see someone holding hands that's perverted. Turn then. I never got to wait on the same type of camp you know we never got together and they basically said Do what you want but if we get caught. No no we don't got nothing like that you know we gotta think we were showed the civil some gunnery of films in full color. I mean that right on it. And of course the person with the shanker open Shanker was a black man. Correct thank you. I thought I'd just put that in a matter. That's that's important for you. Thank you for calling that is I don't know. I remember an instructor in basic training explaining to us that the reason that we were being given these hours of training on how to put on makeup how to tweeze our eyebrows how to

take care of our hands and feet was because they were trying to do away with the butchy image of women in the military. I'm going to take a look at Radcliffe women and to Sarah Lawrence women who all are wearing were wearing 30 years ago jeans with holes in them and no makeup before we ever thought of adopting. Well thank you all. Debra Judy Sharon Pat. It's been an amazing hour and very informative. Deborah do you have a phone number that you can give women if they want to call. I sure do. I have my phone number 8 3 5 8 9 2 3. And my name's Deborah. I also have an address if anyone would care to write. You can write. L is after nine for four Market Street suite 500. San Francisco and the zip on that is 9 4 1 0 2. OK when you get it one more time. OK. It's the name that you write to is El Zephyrs E

E P H Y R nine four four Market Street suite 500 San Francisco. And again the zip 9 4 1 0 2 and I'll give you the telephone number once more to say 3 5 8 9 2 3. Why don't you say again about that you're looking for material. Yeah we we're asking women who have been in the service or even if you want to write about someone that you know that has had some sort of bad experience and just send us this information so that we can begin to get other news out to other information out to women that are thinking about going in Besides you know what the recruiter will tell them. Thank you all again for being with us this is Sabrina Sojourner saying good afternoon.