Homosexual men and women who served their country

The present work examines the effectiveness of United States military policies in excluding homosexual men and women from the armed forces by comparing percentages of homosexuals who have served in the armed forces with matched samples of heterosexuals. Interview data on 1,456 respondents from 1969 and 1970 are reported. The data show that homosexual and heterosexual men seem equally likely to have served in the military, while lesbians were more likely than heterosexual women to have served. The data also indicate that the policies of excluding homosexuals from the services are ineffective. The explanation for this may be that many homosexuals may not be aware of their homosexuality at time of entry into the service, and, hence, cannot readily be identified either by themselves or others. It is also suggested that certain draft criteria have in fact increased the percentages of homosexuals serving in the military.