Australian defence personnel dishonourably discharged from the military on the basis of their sexuality should be eligible for a financial redress scheme similar to that available for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse, and deserve a national apology, a leading military historian says.
On Tuesday morning Associate Professor Noah Riseman sent a policy brief to the defence minister Christopher Pyne saying many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender service members suffered great emotional and financial distress under past military policies.
Australia had longstanding bans against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender service, but this discrimination was formally embedded in Australian Army policy in 1944. Riseman said that from 1954 the Royal Australian Navy adopted rules from the British Royal Navy against ”unnatural offences”, introducing invasive investigation procedures such as anal or penile exams in search of physical evidence of homosexuality. These rules were updated to prohibit “abnormal sexual behaviour” in 1969.
Riseman’s research and interviews with more than 130 past and present Australian defence force personnel found that authorities tended to target lesbian and bisexual women disproportionately more so than gay or bisexual men.
Intimidating methods were used to investigate LGBT staff, including interviews that could go on for days and which only ended when the staff member admitted to their homosexuality, he found. Suspected LGBT people were subject to invasive questioning about their sex lives, and were also subject to surveillance. Undercover police were sent to LGBT establishments and followed “suspects” around, taking photographs and interviewing their friends and family.
“The stress of hiding their authentic selves and the traumatising experience of the investigations, interviews and discharges have left ongoing mental health problems for some ex-service personnel,” the policy brief says. “We also know that there were LGBT members under investigation who suicided. For those who rebuilt their lives after discharging, still there is the feeling that the ADF abandoned them and there has never been a proper reconciliation.”
Of the 130 people Riseman spoke to, most opted to go quietly to avoid dishonourable discharge affecting their record. However, he has accessed records which show between 1953 and 1992 at least 489 men and 165 women were investigated for being LGBT.
Data provided to parliament in 1992 on discharges in the five years between 1987 to 1992 revealed 73 honourable discharges of lesbian, gay and bisexual people and 21 dishonourable discharges of LGB people across army, navy and RAAF.
Since 2013, the ADF has permitted members to march in uniform in Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and November marked 25 years since the ban was lifted on gays, lesbians and bisexuals serving in the Australian Defence Force. Transgender restrictions were rescinded in 2010 and in 2005, the ADF amended its policies to recognise same-sex partners in de facto relationships.
But an apology would go a long way towards recognising the harms experienced by those affected by former discriminatory policies, Riseman said.
The brief, commissioned by the Australian Policy and History group at Deakin University, will also be sent to Labor and the Greens. Riseman, a historian with the Australian Catholic University, is also calling for ex-service members who were dishonourably discharged because of their sexuality or gender identity to be able to apply to have the discharges changed to honourable.
Guardian Australia has contacted Pyne’s office for comment but was told by a spokesman it was “a broader government issue”. The office of the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has also been contacted for comment, but did not respond.
Danny Liversidge was a driver in the RAAF and had planned on making the military his career. He loved his job and was often praised by his commanders for being one of the most diligent and reliable members of his troop. But just three years into his career in 1991, he was ordered into a meeting by RAAF police.
In the meeting were two police officers, who interrogated him, and two commanders, who watched on. Liversidge was shocked when he was presented with photos of himself outside of known gay bars and with members of the gay community. He was given two options; leave willingly and without a scene, or have a dishonourable discharge and his homosexuality recorded on his file and be forced out. He chose the former.
“I wasn’t even out to my family at the time,” he told Guardian Australia.
“I was escorted off base four days later and until then I was confined to my room and not allowed to talk to anyone. I was escorted off base.”
Once he left the base Liversidge remembers driving for a block in his car and then pulling over.
“My mind was blank and I pulled up to the side of the road and thought; ‘Where am I going?’ I wasn’t able to speak to anyone in those four days so hadn’t been able to arrange accommodation and I had nowhere to go and nowhere to live.”
He was just 21 years old. Liversidge rang a man he had been seeing who allowed him to stay with him and get back on his feet. He told his family he left the military because it was no longer what he wanted to do. He said he continues to struggle with feelings of being unworthy and with personal relationships.
“It’s like I was given an official government rubber stamp that said ‘you’re not good enough’,” he said.
It wasn’t until 2016, when the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews issued a state apology for historical laws that criminalised homosexuality, that Liversidge told his friends and family the truth.
“They were horrified,” he said. “My dad was so supportive and said ‘Danny, you’re more man than I’ll ever be,’ because he appreciated my courage. I’d buried it so deep until then and never talked about it. My mum said she knew there was more to the story, because I’d gone from someone wanting to stay in the RAAF for life to suddenly having left after just three years.”
Until Riseman contacted Liversidge last year as part of his research, Liversidge thought his case was unique, and that it was a rare case of discrimination. He said he was shocked to find out surveillance of suspected LGBT people and dismissing them from the military had for a time been policy.
“The injustice was official,” he said. “I want to know how big it was and how many people were affected and whether they ever got help. I hate to imagine how those without loving families and support turned out.”
