Garfield High School Oral History Project

Homosexuality in the Navy in the 1980s by Hannah Arrigoni
In the 1980s being open about your homosexuality was highly looked down upon. Thus for, these individuals who were homosexuals were either uncomfortably hiding their identity or being ridiculed for openly expressing their sexuality. The Navy was in desperate need for people that could perform more feminine jobs such as stewarding, and decided to coyly hire homosexual men rather then women. With this, came a place of comfort for these men, benefits for the Navy, and eventually lead to an understanding of gay awareness

Interview with Cora Breuner

Cora Breuner is currently a Doctor as Children's Hospital and an expert on young adults physical and emotional problems. To jump start her career and medical education she decided that to pay for medical school she needed to enter the Navy, which she did from 1978 to 1989. She was stationed on a Destroyer Tender where she was the only doctor. At a time after this she was also stationed in Japan living in the Navy barracks. She firsthandley experienced homosexuality in the Navy and felt very strong about the harassment that went on during these times. She has always been supportive of homosexuals, do to the family she grew up with.

At that time, what was your opinion of homosexuality in general?
I was very supportive, I was pro-gay, I always loved the gays. Even in that time when it was not very public I supported these differences. My cousin was gay, I guess I was just accustomed to it. When I was very young my Mom had a friend named Dick who had a “friend” named Paul and another named Roma. They were all very close and they would come and visit with us or vice versa for extended periods of time. I remember Dick and Paul slept in the same room and I just never really questioned it. They were open about it around us. They wouldn't openly say “We’re gay kids!” but you know what I mean. They weren't hiding the fact that they were two men who slept in the same bed. So from the very beginning I have never felt antigay.

Did you ever encounter any homosexuals while you were in the Navy?
Yes. Oh god yes. The ship I was on had about 1300 crew, 300 of them women, 1000 of them men. Keep in mind, the time that I was in the navy was the first time they were allowing women on ships. But yes, out of the 300 women, 150 were gay and out of the 1000 men 250 were gay. I guess it was a good job to have if you were gay! In a regular setting of a 100 people only 2 to 5% are gay, meaning 2 to 5 were gay in that group so the numbers I mentioned and the ratio of gays is pretty astounding. I don't think it was ever really talked about or addressed but there was definitely more gays in the Navy.

Did you ever experience them getting ridiculed?
Yes. I would say that harassment happened ashore more than afloat. I do remember this situation where the 2nd in command, what was his name... Let me think. Ah, his name was Thomas Gilbert. he called me up to his office and had me sit down. He then said, I have a speculation that there are a lot of lesbians on my ship. I want them off my boat. This was called witch hunting by the way. But yeah, he told me that it was my job to get them off the boat. Who knows why he ever asked me to do it, but I felt trapped. I didn't want to get in trouble with him, but there was no way I was going to rat out the lesbians on the boat, so I thought of a middle ground. I called all of the women into the mess hall and had some gay guys guard and lock the doors. I then proceeded to ask the women what was going on and why the second in command was suspicious of them. They were very shocked at how open I spoke to them and were concerned I would rat them out. I told them I wasn't and then they told me that the lesbian woman were intimidating the non-lesbians and almost propositioning them. Older women would try and convince the younger to come over to “their side”. I told them this has to stop right now. Then I told them all to stop by the medic later and I would prescribe them birth control so that if anyone pulled their medical chart it would be documented and there would be no question that they were a lesbian if they needed the pill. I told them I don't care what you actually do with the pill, just let me prescribe it to you. They were in agreement that the idea was smart and that was that.

Also during the time of ‘78-’82 when HIV was really getting big, I was smack dab in the center of that. My stay in the navy fell during that whole time period. I remember if you were found to have HIV you were kicked out of the navy with a dishonorable discharge. People who were career navy men weren't even given a second glance. A Chief Petty Officer was sentenced to death. I was so upset about this. They were assholes Thinking about it now makes me mad about what they did. Another experience was this woman on my ship who was our best technician, she was incredible! She dealt with nuclear reactants. She was caught with a woman and when confronted didn't deny it. They were going to kick her out of the navy entirely but then decided to make her a file clerk. I was so upset by this. I went to talk to the commanding officer about it. I told him we are losing our best tech, why aren't you stopping this? He told me there was nothing he could really do, his hands were tied. Funny thing, I actually ran into him many years later and asked him about it. He told me he felt awful about it to this day that he didn't support her. So yes there was more of discrimination then anything. Interesting enough though, if there was any ridicule it was usually straight men being assholes, straight women never ridiculed anyone who was gay. Personally I think they were intimidated by how strong and kick-ass these women could be.

Lastly, what were peoples opinions of gays around you and any last things to add in?
Well on the ship I noticed that older people were outwardly anti. Also career navy were much more anti then people who were just in the navy to kinda “do their time”, like me. We didn't give a rats ass. Let em’ do what they want, is how I saw it. Also as mentioned I was the only doc on the boat and along with me there was 8 medics, 4 dentists etc. All in all there were 28 of us... we were all serving our time to get through medical school but not one of us was antigay. I guess that's all you need. Well, to add in I guess I could say that now, looking back at it with the knowledge I now have, the Navy was a good place for the gays to go. If they kept to themselves they wouldn't be ridiculed as they would ashore. And looking at it, sexual minorities who are constantly put down for who they are leads many to depression and reliance on drugs and alcohol, and eventually suicide. At the time people didn't know this but that's the reality of the situations that occurred back then I just think back and wonder with regret. God, if only we knew this back then.

Interview with Dan Crawford

What was your personal experience around homosexuals in the 1980s?
I didnt have much personal experience, because I was told to stay away from them. My parents were very conservative and led me to beleive that I shouldnt stay around them. I didnt have anything against them, I just decided it would be for the better to just stay away. Some people I grew up with werent gay in that time but later on in life I found out that they were. People who were homosexuals were in the closet because they were too scared to come out.

Why would they be too scared?
I know that many gay people were beaten up. Beaten up just because they were gay. The common view of them was negative. In some cities they were more widely accepted, such as New York, Atlanta, San Francisco and the Key West but in more conservative ones they were rarely acknowledged.

What kind of things made it clear that they were against homosexuals?
Many things. They would always make really nasty comments regarding them. For example, they continually and repetively use the word faggot whenever they were referring to a homosexual. If a guy walking down the street, was flipping his wrists or wearing a certain thing, they would assume and call out the fact that he was a faggot.

Anything else you would like to add?
Hmm well during the AIDS epidemic when people started dying afterwards people would have speculations like “Were they gay?” In retrospect many of them probably were gay but never came out. I also think that anti-gays were sometimes closet homosexuals.

Interview with Richard Montarbo

What is your feeling about homosexuals currently, and in the 1980s?
Well, I wouldn't say I fully agree with those decisions. But its not my decision to make. As long as I don't see it... I just don't want to see any of that go on. Gay people aren't bad people, they are no different from you and I but what they do should be kept private. My opinion in 1980 was the same. It may have been stronger. There was a few times back then where a couple of sailors tried to... well you know, they just started to talk to me and tried to proposition me. It was highly inappropriate. I don't know what would have given them the idea that I would do but many sailors went from being liking women to... liking men. Maybe they thought they could make me do the same but no I was never like that. Never did I do that. Reminds me of one of my comrades. This is a pretty funny story. Well maybe not funny but its informational. Well he was a married man, and everyone knew this. There was some cliques you could say. Married men stayed with one another, single men with one another, and gay men with... each other. Now he was a pretty funny guy, really all around good guy. Until this one night, not that it made him a bad guy it was just very shocking. We all had a little too much to drink and we were all talking and he started getting personal about his life. He told us that he had married his wife for the money and respect, not out of love or attraction. He said, how could I be attracted to her when i’m not even attracted to women! We were all shocked. He then added in that his wife was a lesbian too!

Wow, that's crazy! Any other instances where men pretended to be straight?
Well, I’m sure there were but none that I was aware of. That was the only person that I was familiar with. Though as I mentioned before some of the men would become gay on the ship. Not that they were gay but on the ship there seemed to be so many men that went to that side. I knew that when they first came on they had girlfriends but after a couple weeks at sea they were "hanging out” with the gays. Some of those men would leave with a new outlook. They would stay as a homosexual. But others would return to their girlfriends and not think twice about the fact that they had done those things. Maybe it was the fact that there wasn't any women on the boat and .. they needed something to replace that. Well that's where I’m going to stop.

Alright, so it was obvious that the Navy had a lot of gays in it?
Hmm... I don't think I would say obvious. Popular society weren't aware of the high numbers of gay people but people definitely knew that people on the ships were gay. Most of the crew were aware of this but many kept it to themselves. Officers usually kept out of that business unless it concerned them. Other then that it wasn't a secret that gay people were actually in the Navy but in general I don't think anyone knew the high numbers of gays compared to in a regular setting.