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1 gay in US Marines Corps on Netflix
(Article on BBC News)
'They operated under a cloud of fear': A secret history of gay people in the US military
Nick Levine
Netflix comedy drama Boots centres on a closeted teenager who enlists in the US Marine Corps. With humour and vibrancy, it shows what gay recruits in the armed forces have endured.
Two words seem to define the history of gay people in the US military: service and secrecy. Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a trusted advisor of George Washington who is often credited with creating America's professional army in the late 18th Century, is believed by many historians to have been gay. But, like countless service members who followed in his footsteps, he never came out.
That's because, for many decades, gay people were punished by and discharged from the US armed forces. Even in 1994, when it was established that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people could legally serve, it was under a clear directive – "don't ask, don't tell" – which forbade them from discussing their sexuality.
Netflix Boots tells the story of a closeted teenager (played by Miles Heizer) who enrols in the US Marine Corps. When the "don't ask, don't tell policy" was repealed in 2011, openly LGB people were finally welcomed into the US military, and further progress has been made since then. In June 2024, President Joe Biden issued a blanket pardon to thousands of veterans who were convicted under Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Introduced in 1951 and repealed in 2013, this controversial military law prohibited service personnel from engaging in "unnatural carnal copulation" with anyone of the same sex. In a statement, Biden acknowledged that "many former service members... were convicted simply for being themselves".
Blackmail was a constant vulnerability for LGB troops – Dr Nathaniel Frank
Now the new Netflix comedy drama series Boots, based on Greg Cope White's 2016 memoir The Pink Marine, is bringing the bravery of gay service members to the fore. Cope White calls military service "the great equaliser" because, as he tells the BBC, "they shave your head, put you in camouflage, hand you a rifle, and tell you you're all the same". But even in recent decades, LGBTQ+ military personnel have had to fight for the right to be treated the same as their straight counterparts.
Despite its strict wording, Article 125 of the UCMJ never kept gay people from serving their country per se – they just had to be careful not to get caught. "Lesbian, gay and bisexual troops operated under a cloud of fear, suspicion and uncertainty," cultural historian Dr Nathaniel Frank tells the BBC. "Often, [same-sex] relationships that went awry or incidents with a superior or subordinate could lead to blackmail, which was a constant vulnerability for LGB troops." Frank, the author of the 2009 book 'Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America', and the director of Cornell University's "What We Know" Research Portal, notes that a closeted service member's "pay, retirement benefits and entire career was always at risk" if they were outed. "And occasionally, gay people would end up in military jails for engaging in same-sex intimacy," he adds.
Alamy celebrated military man Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, George Washington's trusted advisor, is thought by many to have been gay (Credit: Alamy)
Frank says that when the "don't ask, don't tell" directive was introduced by President Bill Clinton, it was "supposed to offer an improvement" by "ending so-called 'witch hunts'" and protecting closeted service members from being harassed or discriminated against. But in practice, the policy made things even worse. "By drawing attention to the issue in a national culture war, gay people came under a microscope, and data showed that the number of discharges [on grounds of sexuality] actually went up instead of down," Frank says. "Officials weren't supposed to ask if someone was gay, but [many] violated this rule constantly and the witch hunts continued."
A unique depiction of military life : Now Boots shines a spotlight on the courage and resilience of service members, who sublimated an integral part of their identity in order to serve. Created by Andy Parker, whose previous credits include Netflix's adaptation of Armistead Maupin's LGBT literary classic Tales of the City, Boots is faithful to the spirit of Cope White's book, which is candid, comedic and bigger on positivity than pity. Miles Heizer stars as Cameron, a closeted gay teenager who enlists in a Marine Corps boot camp in a desperate effort to belong – much as Cope White did. "I know I'm a man, but society was telling me that I was less than [because of my sexuality]," the author recalls. "I went into that environment to find my place in the masculine world, even though it's potentially the roughest place to find that."
But at the same time, the eight-part series makes significant changes to the book's scope and setting. Where Cope White began boot camp in 1979, Boots relocates the action to 1990, just four years before "don't ask, don't tell" was introduced. If the series is renewed for further seasons, as Parker hopes, this policy should provide plenty of dramatic grist to go with the other storylines. "Our gay main character certainly has a secret that's very high stakes for him in that environment," Parker says, "but everybody he meets there also has something they're hiding or running from. That commonality felt, to me, like an interesting thing to explore."
Even with its homoerotic frisson, this sense of absurdity reflects what was a desperately sad and destructive real-life situation for many service members. "Some of the former marines who worked on this series [as historical advisers] aren't gay, but they found these policies just as absurd [as their gay counterparts]," Parker says, pointing to the way they seemed "completely counterintuitive to the social cohesion" at the core of military life. Cope White says his main reason for leaving the Marines after six years of service was the constant toll of lying – something Cameron has to navigate throughout the series. "The Marines is a place to find your authentic self," he says. "But I wasn't allowed to be my authentic self, and I couldn't continue being inauthentic with people that I admired and respected so much."
These days, LGB people can serve without subterfuge – indeed, a 2015 survey of over 16,000 service members found that 5.8% of respondents identified as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. However, trans personnel find themselves in a familiar-looking quandary following a ban announced in January by President Donald Trump, which prevents them from taking any job in the US military; his executive order on the matter asserted that identifying as transgender "conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honourable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle" and hampers military preparedness. In May, the Supreme Court temporarily allowed Trump to enforce his ban while legal challenges proceed.
Because of this ongoing court battle, Boots has acquired a remarkable timeliness for a period piece, says Parker. "When I sold the idea in 2020, I thought we were going to be telling a meaningful piece of history. I could not have anticipated what it would mean now in this present time, when we're talking about [the right to serve of] trans people and seeing a similar cruelty inflicted."
Frank believes that "national defence has always acted as a staging ground for debates over what it means to be an American" because of its unique place in the collective psyche. "For anti-gay activists, letting gay people serve their country in uniform threatened to reveal something they did not want to acknowledge – that gay people were not self-centred hedonists who belonged on the margins of American society," he says. In Cope White's eyes, any kind of exclusion is anathema to the very idea of military service. "We ask young people from all walks of life to come together and [potentially] give their lives to protect our constitution," he says. "Anybody willing and qualified to serve should not just be allowed to serve – they should be embraced and celebrated."
Boots is available to stream on Netflix now.
--
BBC.com
(Article on BBC News)
'They operated under a cloud of fear': A secret history of gay people in the US military
Nick Levine
Netflix comedy drama Boots centres on a closeted teenager who enlists in the US Marine Corps. With humour and vibrancy, it shows what gay recruits in the armed forces have endured.
Two words seem to define the history of gay people in the US military: service and secrecy. Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a trusted advisor of George Washington who is often credited with creating America's professional army in the late 18th Century, is believed by many historians to have been gay. But, like countless service members who followed in his footsteps, he never came out.
That's because, for many decades, gay people were punished by and discharged from the US armed forces. Even in 1994, when it was established that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people could legally serve, it was under a clear directive – "don't ask, don't tell" – which forbade them from discussing their sexuality.
Netflix Boots tells the story of a closeted teenager (played by Miles Heizer) who enrols in the US Marine Corps. When the "don't ask, don't tell policy" was repealed in 2011, openly LGB people were finally welcomed into the US military, and further progress has been made since then. In June 2024, President Joe Biden issued a blanket pardon to thousands of veterans who were convicted under Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Introduced in 1951 and repealed in 2013, this controversial military law prohibited service personnel from engaging in "unnatural carnal copulation" with anyone of the same sex. In a statement, Biden acknowledged that "many former service members... were convicted simply for being themselves".
Blackmail was a constant vulnerability for LGB troops – Dr Nathaniel Frank
Now the new Netflix comedy drama series Boots, based on Greg Cope White's 2016 memoir The Pink Marine, is bringing the bravery of gay service members to the fore. Cope White calls military service "the great equaliser" because, as he tells the BBC, "they shave your head, put you in camouflage, hand you a rifle, and tell you you're all the same". But even in recent decades, LGBTQ+ military personnel have had to fight for the right to be treated the same as their straight counterparts.
Despite its strict wording, Article 125 of the UCMJ never kept gay people from serving their country per se – they just had to be careful not to get caught. "Lesbian, gay and bisexual troops operated under a cloud of fear, suspicion and uncertainty," cultural historian Dr Nathaniel Frank tells the BBC. "Often, [same-sex] relationships that went awry or incidents with a superior or subordinate could lead to blackmail, which was a constant vulnerability for LGB troops." Frank, the author of the 2009 book 'Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America', and the director of Cornell University's "What We Know" Research Portal, notes that a closeted service member's "pay, retirement benefits and entire career was always at risk" if they were outed. "And occasionally, gay people would end up in military jails for engaging in same-sex intimacy," he adds.
Alamy celebrated military man Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, George Washington's trusted advisor, is thought by many to have been gay (Credit: Alamy)
Frank says that when the "don't ask, don't tell" directive was introduced by President Bill Clinton, it was "supposed to offer an improvement" by "ending so-called 'witch hunts'" and protecting closeted service members from being harassed or discriminated against. But in practice, the policy made things even worse. "By drawing attention to the issue in a national culture war, gay people came under a microscope, and data showed that the number of discharges [on grounds of sexuality] actually went up instead of down," Frank says. "Officials weren't supposed to ask if someone was gay, but [many] violated this rule constantly and the witch hunts continued."
A unique depiction of military life : Now Boots shines a spotlight on the courage and resilience of service members, who sublimated an integral part of their identity in order to serve. Created by Andy Parker, whose previous credits include Netflix's adaptation of Armistead Maupin's LGBT literary classic Tales of the City, Boots is faithful to the spirit of Cope White's book, which is candid, comedic and bigger on positivity than pity. Miles Heizer stars as Cameron, a closeted gay teenager who enlists in a Marine Corps boot camp in a desperate effort to belong – much as Cope White did. "I know I'm a man, but society was telling me that I was less than [because of my sexuality]," the author recalls. "I went into that environment to find my place in the masculine world, even though it's potentially the roughest place to find that."
But at the same time, the eight-part series makes significant changes to the book's scope and setting. Where Cope White began boot camp in 1979, Boots relocates the action to 1990, just four years before "don't ask, don't tell" was introduced. If the series is renewed for further seasons, as Parker hopes, this policy should provide plenty of dramatic grist to go with the other storylines. "Our gay main character certainly has a secret that's very high stakes for him in that environment," Parker says, "but everybody he meets there also has something they're hiding or running from. That commonality felt, to me, like an interesting thing to explore."
Even with its homoerotic frisson, this sense of absurdity reflects what was a desperately sad and destructive real-life situation for many service members. "Some of the former marines who worked on this series [as historical advisers] aren't gay, but they found these policies just as absurd [as their gay counterparts]," Parker says, pointing to the way they seemed "completely counterintuitive to the social cohesion" at the core of military life. Cope White says his main reason for leaving the Marines after six years of service was the constant toll of lying – something Cameron has to navigate throughout the series. "The Marines is a place to find your authentic self," he says. "But I wasn't allowed to be my authentic self, and I couldn't continue being inauthentic with people that I admired and respected so much."
These days, LGB people can serve without subterfuge – indeed, a 2015 survey of over 16,000 service members found that 5.8% of respondents identified as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. However, trans personnel find themselves in a familiar-looking quandary following a ban announced in January by President Donald Trump, which prevents them from taking any job in the US military; his executive order on the matter asserted that identifying as transgender "conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honourable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle" and hampers military preparedness. In May, the Supreme Court temporarily allowed Trump to enforce his ban while legal challenges proceed.
Because of this ongoing court battle, Boots has acquired a remarkable timeliness for a period piece, says Parker. "When I sold the idea in 2020, I thought we were going to be telling a meaningful piece of history. I could not have anticipated what it would mean now in this present time, when we're talking about [the right to serve of] trans people and seeing a similar cruelty inflicted."
Frank believes that "national defence has always acted as a staging ground for debates over what it means to be an American" because of its unique place in the collective psyche. "For anti-gay activists, letting gay people serve their country in uniform threatened to reveal something they did not want to acknowledge – that gay people were not self-centred hedonists who belonged on the margins of American society," he says. In Cope White's eyes, any kind of exclusion is anathema to the very idea of military service. "We ask young people from all walks of life to come together and [potentially] give their lives to protect our constitution," he says. "Anybody willing and qualified to serve should not just be allowed to serve – they should be embraced and celebrated."
Boots is available to stream on Netflix now.
--
BBC.com
