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Abstract
“Homecomings” is part creative nonfiction prose, part research article, and part interview. It critiques military HIV policy through the lens of my relationships with my three brothers, each of whom was diagnosed as seropositive while on active duty.
About the Author
Marlon Rachquel Moore is assistant professor of English at the US Naval Academy. Her interests include popular culture, gender and sexuality studies, and African American literature. She is the author of In the Life & In the Spirit: Homoerotic Spirituality in African American Literature (SUNY, 2014), and her work has or will appear in The African American Review, Black Camera, Medical Humanities, Critical Insights, and Sisters in the Life: A History of Out African American Lesbian Media-Making.
Notes
1 Shilts, Randy, “Dismissed!: The Purging of Gay and Lesbian Troops from the Armed Forces,” Los Angeles Times, 25 April 1993. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-25-tm-26850-story.html
2 The mandate to keep troops with HIV on active duty has been challenged or defied in many ways since 1986. Most recently, the Trump Administration initiated a policy in 2018 that ordered the discharge of any active duty members who had been ineligible for overseas duty for more than a 12-month period. See Roe and Voe vs. Mattis.
3 Some of the restrictions have been lifted for assignments on large ships. Matthew Burke. “Navy Opens More Assignments to HIV-positive Sailors, Marines,” Stars and Stripes, November 1, 2013. www.stripes.com
4 In 1991, in response to the recently collected Navy-wide data assessment that suggested African Americans receive more punishments and are sent to courts martial more often, the Bureau of Personnel commissioned an analysis of sample cases. The second report confirmed the first. See Amy L. Culbertson and Paul Magnusson. “An Investigation into Equity in Navy Discipline.” Navy Personnel Research and Development Center, Bureau of Naval Personnel Equal Opportunity Division, July 1992.
5 In lieu of a formal trial, a captain’s mast is the presentation of evidence and testimony before the commander of the military facility regarding accusation of a minor offense. If found guilty, the punishment can include reprimand, confinement, forfeiture of pay, rank reduction, and expulsion.
6 For gay military culture’s development of port cities, see Allan Berube, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II, University of North Carolina Press, 1990. For the military’s role in Los Angelies, see Lillian Faderman/Stuart Timmons, Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians (Basic Books, 2006). For gayborhood history, see Christina Hanhardt, Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence (Duke University Press, 2013).
7 Randy Shilts, Conduct Unbecoming: Gays & Lesbians in the U.S. Military (St Martin’s Griffin, 1994), 126.
8 Ibid., 126.
9 For a breakdown on the history and current ways in which nondisclosure and/or transmission of HIV is singled out among all debilitating STIs, see HIV Criminalization in the United States: A Sourcebook on State and Federal HIV Criminal Law and Practice, 3rd ed. (The Center for HIV Law and Policy, 2017). hivlawandpolicy.org (accessed February 16, 2019).
10 Eugene R. Milihizer, “Endangering Others: The Military’s Approach for Controlling HIV Transmission,” Judges Journal, 34 (1990): 34–6. See also the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project, “State Criminal Statutes on HIV Transmission 2008,” www.aclu.org/other/state-criminal-statutes-hiv-transmission (accessed July 8, 2019).
11 Eric Schmitt, “The Transition: News Analysis—Challenging the Military; In Promising to End Ban on Homosexuals, Clinton is Confronting a Wall of Tradition,” The New York Times, November 12, 1992, digital archives. NYTimes.com.
12 For critiques of DADT from legal analysts, see Janet Halley Don’t: A Reader’s Guide to the Military’s Anti-Gay Policy (Duke University Press, 1999); and Alafair Burke, “A Few Straight Men: Homosexuals in the Military and Equal Protection,” Stanford Law and Policy Review 6, no. 1 (1994): 109–22.
13 Harvard Hollenberg, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Means Everybody,” New York Times, July 1, 1993. www.nytimes.com
14 “Discharges Under the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell Policy: Women and Racial/Ethnic Minorities,” The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy, UCLA School of Law, September 2010.
15 Stefano Vella et al., “The History of Antiretroviral Therapy and of Its Implementation in Resource-Limited Areas of the World.” AIDS 26, no. 10 (2012): 1231–41. DOI: 10.1097/QAD.0b013e32835521a3.
16 Vincent Marconi et al., “Outcomes of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy in the Context of Universal Access to Healthcare: The U.S. Military HIV Natural History Study. AIDS Research and Therapy 7, no. 14 (2010). doi: 10.1186/1742-6405-7-14.
17 The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine is a nonprofit agency and one of twenty-two research partners in the MHRP.