More than a decade after then-President Barack Obama relegated “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to the dustbin of history, tens of thousands of former service members who were unfairly discharged and stigmatized due to their sexual orientation are on track to restore their records and their benefits under a new settlement with the US military.
The settlement represents the culmination of a class action lawsuit initially filed in August of 2023 to push the Department of Defense to improve the process of upgrading discharges and records. The settlement, filed in federal district court in California, must gain court approval.
According to Impact Fund, which represented many of the veterans who sued the military, the first part of the settlement would make it easier for veterans who were already honorably discharged to amend their DD-214 forms to remove references to their sexual orientation. This approach speeds up a more formal and drawn-out process — often taking over a year — through the Board of Corrections.
The second part of the settlement would broaden a Department of Defense initiative to review and potentially upgrade cases involving veterans who had “Other Than Honorable” discharges or “General Under Honorable” discharge labels. It would allow veterans to opt into a review process without filling out an application or waiting for their new military records.
“Growing up, I learned the value of service from my parents and I knew I wanted to serve the public, both in the military and beyond,” Jules Sohn, a US Marine Corps veteran and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a written statement through Impact Fund. “As a marine, I was proud to stand alongside my fellow service members, embracing the core values of honor, courage, and commitment. However, the pain and injustice of being discharged under discriminatory policies like ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ have lingered for years. This settlement represents not just a recognition of those wrongs but a step toward ensuring that no service member ever faces such prejudice again.”
The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.
One month after the lawsuit was first filed, the Department of Defense launched a new initiative to seek out queer service members who were kicked out of the military during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and encourage them to try to get their records corrected. The Department of Defense said at the time that four out of every five applicants had gained upgrades, but conceded that many others had not done so due to the difficult application process, fear of mistreatment, and lack of awareness.
The department had created a web page to be a resource for individuals seeking more information about the process. That initiative came two years after the Department of Veterans Affairs rolled out a similar effort to restore benefits and honorable status to service members booted due to their sexual orientation or HIV status.
The future is far more uncertain for transgender troops. President-elect Donald Trump said during a Dec. 22 speech that he would be signing an executive order to “get transgender out of the military” — an apparent preview of yet another ban on transgender troops. Trump banned trans troops from the military during his first term, though the rollout of that policy was dysfunctional and uneven, with some branches of the military going further than others. President Joe Biden reversed that ban upon taking office in January of 2021.
