Navy gays

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No, we’re not. “But the weeks following, once the smoke settled, there were still people who were getting discharged from the military…so that’s when we all started to realize that, hey, this is just a discriminatory policy.” Over the nearly 18 years that DADT was law, thousands of service members were discharged for engaging in “homosexual conduct,” which included being in a same-sex relationship.⁴

The remainder of Santiago’s 20-year naval career was spent under the shadow of DADT.

Did we serve in silence? But it was tough.”

Though Santiago had to conceal part of his identity while in the Navy, he successfully completed his first tour and began his second duty station in Belgium. We’ve always served. In his experience, adherence to DADT depended on the individual commanding officers. The Navy, however, leads by a wide margin, with an estimated 10.4% of its personnel identifying as gay or bisexual.

For context, a 2025 Gallup poll indicates that around 6% of U.S.

men identify as LGBTQ+. During Pride Month, he controversially removed Harvey Milk’s name from a Navy vessel and opposed the promotion of the rear admiral who supported Daniels’ drag show. “My response was, ‘Ok, whatever, just go back to work. Veterans from all over have attended the town halls, including sailors from USS Constitution. I called the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network [now Modern Military Association of America] at the time and I asked for advice.

It doesn’t get any more historic than that.”

_{1 U.S. Government Accountability Office. Key working group findings on repeal implementation are released.}

22 December 2010. “That moment, seeing those hands raised, is something I couldn’t do 20 years earlier. Santiago remembers feeling a “sense of family,” where sailors helped each other out to “give the best tour we can.”

As a petty officer, he also took on a leadership role in mentoring junior sailors on Constitution.

Something that the federal government didn’t take at the time.” As a mentor, he also understood that leadership was integral in setting the tone. “For the most part no one cared,” he recalls. His partner, who he introduced to shipmates as his “cousin,” fully understood Santiago’s career and the personal sacrifices that came with it.

San Francisco’s queer identity, for example, was shaped in part by sailors settling there after World War II.

The 1994 documentary and book Coming Out Under Fire highlights numerous accounts of gay and bi service members during the WWII era, many of whom found solidarity in coastal cities like San Francisco and New York.

In the U.K., sailors even created their own coded language, Polari, to communicate safely within an often-hostile environment.

Despite institutionalised homophobia—especially during the Lavender Scare, which led to mass expulsions of LGBTQ+ service members—an underground queer culture endured for decades.

The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) Repeal Act becomes law. We finished our careers after 20 years with honor and distinction and sacrifice. At the time, the question on 17-year-old Santiago’s mind was, “What’s going to happen while I’m in service, while I’m wearing the uniform?” Santiago, who is gay, resolved that he would do everything possible to finish at least one tour of duty.

It really brought me home. “It was still very hard,” he remembers. While ships out in the fleet have crews of hundreds or thousands of sailors, USS Constitutionis a small, diverse unit of around 70 sailors. It came full circle.