Lesbians In The News

[*Anya*]

Lesbian veteran, 90, expelled from Air Force in '55, finally gets her 'honorable discharge'

“I’m still trying to process it,” military veteran Helen Grace James said upon receiving the long-awaited news.

by John Paul Brammer / Jan.18.2018 / 9:57 AM ET




A FedEx delivery arrived at Helen Grace James' door on Wednesday. It was a message from the U.S. Air Force. She called two of her closest friends to come be with her before she opened it, and they arrived 20 minutes later.

Once she opened it, she received the good news: The military had upgraded her discharge status to "honorable." James had been waiting for this for more than six decades.

"I'm still trying to process it," she told NBC News. "It was both joy and shock. It was really true. It was really going to be an 'honorable discharge.'"

A FedEx delivery arrived at Helen Grace James' door on Wednesday. It was a message from the U.S. Air Force. She called two of her closest friends to come be with her before she opened it, and they arrived 20 minutes later.

Once she opened it, she received the good news: The military had upgraded her discharge status to "honorable." James had been waiting for this for more than six decades.

"I'm still trying to process it," she told NBC News. "It was both joy and shock. It was really true. It was really going to be an 'honorable discharge.'"

For James, now 90, it has been a long journey to this moment of vindication. "It's hard to take in," she said. "I'm wondering if I'm in a dream or a wish."

On a cold winter night in 1955, light from a flashlight flooded into James’ car just as she was reaching in the backseat for her sandwich. Investigators had followed her vehicle to the wooded area near Hempstead Harbor in New York, where she was eating with a friend.

James, then in the Air Force, had suspected she was being followed that night. She had been subjected to intense scrutiny for weeks by the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which was investigating service members suspected of being gay. They had even followed her into a lesbian dance club once.

“It was a place called Bagatelles,” James told NBC News. “People were screened as they went in, but the OSI somehow were able to get in and harass me there. They followed me into the latrine. It was scary. It was intense.”

James, who hails from rural Pennsylvania, enlisted in the Air Force in 1952. Her record during her three years of service was impeccable. She’d received positive performance evaluations and had no disciplinary problems. She’d been promoted from radio operator to crew chief and achieved the rank of Airman Second Class.

But while stationed in Roslyn Air Force Base in New York, she came under investigation by the OSI. A few days after that night near Hempstead Harbor, she was arrested in her barracks and interrogated for hours.

She said the OSI threatened to out her to her family if she didn’t sign a document. So she did, without reading it, effectively ending her military career then and there. She was discharged as “undesirable” with no severance pay, insurance or other benefits.

She found herself having to make her own way in life. She hadn’t spoken to her family, who lived in Pennsylvania on the dairy farm where she'd grown up. “I couldn’t face them,” she said. She couldn’t access the benefits of the GI Bill to help her through school. She moved to California, where she resides today, and worked and borrowed money to pay for her education.

James was just one victim of what has come to be known as the “Lavender Scare,” a period of time contemporaneous with the “Red Scare” of the 1950s, when suspected communists were purged from the U.S. government.

Anti-gay sentiment commingled with the panic. During the fever pitch of McCarthyism, homosexuality was associated with communism: a scheme to undermine the American family and American values, an immoral act that left who those participated in it susceptible to blackmail.

In the 1960s, James was able to successfully upgrade her status from “undesirable” to “general discharge under honorable conditions.” She said she tried to move on with her life from there but was still met with obstacles due to her status.

“I tried to get USAA coverage for insurance, and they said 'No, you can’t be a member, because you don’t have an honorable discharge,'” she recalled. “I [couldn't] be buried in a national cemetery either."

James said her less-than-honorable discharge status was always on her mind. "It’s never out of your scope of thought," she said.

That's why on Jan 3, at the age of 90, James decided to sue the Air Force to have her discharge status upgraded to "honorable." Prior to finding out the Air Force had granted her upgrade, James said an "honorable discharge" would hold both tangible and symbolic value for her.

“It will make me feel like I’ve done all I can to prove I am a good person,” she told NBC News on Tuesday, “and that I deserve to be a whole civilian in this country I love.”

Elizabeth Kristen, a senior staff attorney at Legal Aid at Work and the director of its Gender Equity & LGBT Rights Program, represents James. She said getting a veteran's status upgraded can typically be "a pretty lengthy process."

“When 'don’t ask, don’t tell' was repealed, the right thing to do would have been to automatically upgrade the discharge," Kristen explained. But that didn't happen.

Kristen said thousands of LGBTQ people discharged due to their sexual orientation still struggle with the hurdles James has encountered. “There are hundreds of benefits provided to our veterans, but depending on your discharge status, you can be locked out of them,” she said.

These benefits include access to the GI Bill, veteran home loans, health care from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and a burial in a national cemetery.

Matt Thorn, president and CEO of OutServe-SLDN, an advocacy organization for the LGBTQ military community, said the process for having one's discharge status upgraded could certainly be improved, adding "the burden of providing information falls heavily on the veterans themselves."

Over the last three years, Thorn has worked with Lambda Legal to fight President Donald Trump's transgender military ban and with Congressman Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, on the Restore Honor to Service Members Act, which would essentially wipe the slate clean for anyone who was discharged from the military due to their sexual orientation.

Thorn said the military is reluctant to embrace this legislation, because there could be people “for whom their sexual orientation was just one thing of a series of things that that qualified them for discharge.”

“They don’t want to wipe the slate clean, because there might be some people who were rightfully discharged,” he said. “That’s why they have the individualized process. But could it be improved upon? Absolutely.”

In a statement provided to NBC News, Air Force spokesperson Kathleen Atanasoff said each case requires the Air Force to convene a group of subject matter experts to conduct a complete historical review of the member's case file, which requires time.

"The volume of applications has increased substantially over the past five years, which can make the 10-18-month administrative timeline challenging," Atanasoff wrote in an email. "The Board of Military Corrections is dedicated to tackling this through increasing efficiencies in their process and finding ways to expedite the process as much as possible."

Following Wednesday's message from the Air Force, James is now awaiting her official discharge paperwork. Kristen said once the paperwork is completed, the likely scenario is that an agreement will be reached between James and the Air Force to dismiss her recently filed lawsuit.

Until then, James plans to savor the good news for which she waited more than six decades.

"The Air Force recognizes me as a full person in the military," she said, having done "my job helping to take care of the country I love."

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-...y-gets-n838516

[DapperButch]

How fantastic! Thanks for posting!

Originally Posted by *Anya*

Lesbian veteran, 90, expelled from Air Force in '55, finally gets her 'honorable discharge'

“I’m still trying to process it,” military veteran Helen Grace James said upon receiving the long-awaited news.

by John Paul Brammer / Jan.18.2018 / 9:57 AM ET




A FedEx delivery arrived at Helen Grace James' door on Wednesday. It was a message from the U.S. Air Force. She called two of her closest friends to come be with her before she opened it, and they arrived 20 minutes later.

Once she opened it, she received the good news: The military had upgraded her discharge status to "honorable." James had been waiting for this for more than six decades.

"I'm still trying to process it," she told NBC News. "It was both joy and shock. It was really true. It was really going to be an 'honorable discharge.'"

A FedEx delivery arrived at Helen Grace James' door on Wednesday. It was a message from the U.S. Air Force. She called two of her closest friends to come be with her before she opened it, and they arrived 20 minutes later.

Once she opened it, she received the good news: The military had upgraded her discharge status to "honorable." James had been waiting for this for more than six decades.

"I'm still trying to process it," she told NBC News. "It was both joy and shock. It was really true. It was really going to be an 'honorable discharge.'"

For James, now 90, it has been a long journey to this moment of vindication. "It's hard to take in," she said. "I'm wondering if I'm in a dream or a wish."

On a cold winter night in 1955, light from a flashlight flooded into James’ car just as she was reaching in the backseat for her sandwich. Investigators had followed her vehicle to the wooded area near Hempstead Harbor in New York, where she was eating with a friend.

James, then in the Air Force, had suspected she was being followed that night. She had been subjected to intense scrutiny for weeks by the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which was investigating service members suspected of being gay. They had even followed her into a lesbian dance club once.

“It was a place called Bagatelles,” James told NBC News. “People were screened as they went in, but the OSI somehow were able to get in and harass me there. They followed me into the latrine. It was scary. It was intense.”

James, who hails from rural Pennsylvania, enlisted in the Air Force in 1952. Her record during her three years of service was impeccable. She’d received positive performance evaluations and had no disciplinary problems. She’d been promoted from radio operator to crew chief and achieved the rank of Airman Second Class.

But while stationed in Roslyn Air Force Base in New York, she came under investigation by the OSI. A few days after that night near Hempstead Harbor, she was arrested in her barracks and interrogated for hours.

She said the OSI threatened to out her to her family if she didn’t sign a document. So she did, without reading it, effectively ending her military career then and there. She was discharged as “undesirable” with no severance pay, insurance or other benefits.

She found herself having to make her own way in life. She hadn’t spoken to her family, who lived in Pennsylvania on the dairy farm where she'd grown up. “I couldn’t face them,” she said. She couldn’t access the benefits of the GI Bill to help her through school. She moved to California, where she resides today, and worked and borrowed money to pay for her education.

James was just one victim of what has come to be known as the “Lavender Scare,” a period of time contemporaneous with the “Red Scare” of the 1950s, when suspected communists were purged from the U.S. government.

Anti-gay sentiment commingled with the panic. During the fever pitch of McCarthyism, homosexuality was associated with communism: a scheme to undermine the American family and American values, an immoral act that left who those participated in it susceptible to blackmail.

In the 1960s, James was able to successfully upgrade her status from “undesirable” to “general discharge under honorable conditions.” She said she tried to move on with her life from there but was still met with obstacles due to her status.

“I tried to get USAA coverage for insurance, and they said 'No, you can’t be a member, because you don’t have an honorable discharge,'” she recalled. “I [couldn't] be buried in a national cemetery either."

James said her less-than-honorable discharge status was always on her mind. "It’s never out of your scope of thought," she said.

That's why on Jan 3, at the age of 90, James decided to sue the Air Force to have her discharge status upgraded to "honorable." Prior to finding out the Air Force had granted her upgrade, James said an "honorable discharge" would hold both tangible and symbolic value for her.

“It will make me feel like I’ve done all I can to prove I am a good person,” she told NBC News on Tuesday, “and that I deserve to be a whole civilian in this country I love.”

Elizabeth Kristen, a senior staff attorney at Legal Aid at Work and the director of its Gender Equity & LGBT Rights Program, represents James. She said getting a veteran's status upgraded can typically be "a pretty lengthy process."

“When 'don’t ask, don’t tell' was repealed, the right thing to do would have been to automatically upgrade the discharge," Kristen explained. But that didn't happen.

Kristen said thousands of LGBTQ people discharged due to their sexual orientation still struggle with the hurdles James has encountered. “There are hundreds of benefits provided to our veterans, but depending on your discharge status, you can be locked out of them,” she said.

These benefits include access to the GI Bill, veteran home loans, health care from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and a burial in a national cemetery.

Matt Thorn, president and CEO of OutServe-SLDN, an advocacy organization for the LGBTQ military community, said the process for having one's discharge status upgraded could certainly be improved, adding "the burden of providing information falls heavily on the veterans themselves."

Over the last three years, Thorn has worked with Lambda Legal to fight President Donald Trump's transgender military ban and with Congressman Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, on the Restore Honor to Service Members Act, which would essentially wipe the slate clean for anyone who was discharged from the military due to their sexual orientation.

Thorn said the military is reluctant to embrace this legislation, because there could be people “for whom their sexual orientation was just one thing of a series of things that that qualified them for discharge.”

“They don’t want to wipe the slate clean, because there might be some people who were rightfully discharged,” he said. “That’s why they have the individualized process. But could it be improved upon? Absolutely.”

In a statement provided to NBC News, Air Force spokesperson Kathleen Atanasoff said each case requires the Air Force to convene a group of subject matter experts to conduct a complete historical review of the member's case file, which requires time.

"The volume of applications has increased substantially over the past five years, which can make the 10-18-month administrative timeline challenging," Atanasoff wrote in an email. "The Board of Military Corrections is dedicated to tackling this through increasing efficiencies in their process and finding ways to expedite the process as much as possible."

Following Wednesday's message from the Air Force, James is now awaiting her official discharge paperwork. Kristen said once the paperwork is completed, the likely scenario is that an agreement will be reached between James and the Air Force to dismiss her recently filed lawsuit.

Until then, James plans to savor the good news for which she waited more than six decades.

"The Air Force recognizes me as a full person in the military," she said, having done "my job helping to take care of the country I love."

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-...y-gets-n838516

[*Anya*]

Elderly lesbian told she would ‘burn in hell’ by fellow care home resident Jimmy McCloskey

Tuesday 6 Feb 2018 2:09 pm




Marsha Wetzel said she has been slapped and taunted since moving to the Glen St. Andrews Living Community in Niles, Il, with staff ignoring her pleas for help.

The widow, who moved there when her partner Judy Kahn died of colon cancer three years ago, has now launched a ground-breaking lawsuit against the home for failing to protect her.

In a YouTube video, Martha spoke of her fear after coming out when she showed a fellow resident a photo of the son she adopted with Judy. She said: ‘It got out and I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again’ Gay hate.

Marsha Wetzel says she has been abused by fellow residents at her care home – and that staff have ignored her pleas for help ‘There were a handful of residents, I could tell were really going to give me trouble. ‘I tried to avoid them but they would seek me out to taunt me. ‘I’ve heard every negative homosexual term, I’ve been hit more than once. ‘You can get so scared, you can’t sleep, you can’t eat. ‘You don’t want to take a shower, you don’t want to get dressed. You don’t want to go in the hall.’

Marsha has now launched a groundbreaking federal lawsuit against the home for failing to protect her from abuse. Marsha, who was evicted from the home she shared with Judy by her partner’s homphobic relatives, expects to be abused until her death.

She said: ‘I’d look out the window, I’ve got a cemetery out there. ‘That’s when I’ll stop being made fun of because I’m gay. ‘(The) staff don't protect me, I don't feel any safety of going to them. ‘I want to stick with this and get justice, and I want people to know, stop pushing us around.’

The 7th U.S. Court of Appeals will begin hearing oral arguments in Marsha’s case Wednesday. If she wins, it could help establish that Fair Housing Act protections extend to LGBTQ tenants.

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/06/elderl...8/?ito=cbshare

[Esme nha Maire]

That's apalling! How on earth could any commercial organisation think that it is OK to allow someone in their care to be assaulted, no matter what the excuse for doing so was? That's a failure of care in anyone's book. And as for it needing a court case to get protection 'extended' to LGBTQ folk - doesn't the US constuitition guarantee equality in law for everyone?

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by Esme nha Maire

That's apalling! How on earth could any commercial organisation think that it is OK to allow someone in their care to be assaulted, no matter what the excuse for doing so was? That's a failure of care in anyone's book. And as for it needing a court case to get protection 'extended' to LGBTQ folk - doesn't the US constuitition guarantee equality in law for everyone?

Equality under the Constution is selective and then the person would have to pursue it legally.

I don't know if Ms.Wetzel is living in a licensed facility or non-licensed. If licensed, there should have been a remedy but since it is now going to a court of appeals, whatever suit she brought at a lower level, failed.

I don't know why elder abuse laws in Illinois did not protect her but I did not do further digging to find out the timeline of everything involved.

According to HUD.gov:

The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits housing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, and familial status (i.e., presence of children under the age of 18 in the household or pregnancy).

The Fair Housing Act does not specifically include sexual orientation and gender identity as prohibited bases. However, discrimination against a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) person may be covered by the Fair Housing Act if it is based on non-conformity with gender stereotypes.

For example, if a housing provider refuses to rent to an LGBT person because he believes the person acts in a manner that does not conform to his notion of how a person of a particular sex should act, the person may pursue the matter as a violation of the Fair Housing Act’s prohibition of sex.

[Breathless]

Breaks my heart that this has happened to her, and the oh so many others that have not, or will not speak up, and suffered in silence. I am very happy that she is taking a stand for herself, and others. Proof that there is still so much to be done, and I am profoundly thankful to all the women before me for what they have endured and stood up against and fought for, so that we humans have a chance at a better life. I will be following this story. Thank you Anya for sharing!

[afemmenatalie]

This story just breaks my heart. That poor woman, and I am sure there are plenty more LGBTQ people who have suffered just like her.

I did some research, and see that Marsha Wetzel is receiving legal representation from LAMBDA LEGAL. I also found a GoFundMe page for her, which began in 2016, largely I believe, to defray the cost of her legal counsel/case(s). https://www.gofundme.com/2i0q5tg


I found many links to newspaper articles as well, just by putting her name, Marsha Wetzel, in to the search engine I use.

I am hoping I may somehow be able to help her without giving money to GoFundMe, as they make money by keeping a (small) percentage of the monies donated, and then the remainder she likely will not see as it will go toward her legal fight.

Perhaps an idea would be to write an uplifting card to her at the address provided for her on the GoFundMe page, or to send her a card care of LAMBDA LEGAL. Just a thought.