LGBTQ veterans filed a lawsuit accusing the Defense Department of failing to grant them honorable discharges and “ongoing discrimination” in military paperwork. The plaintiff veterans are requesting that language denoting their sexualities be removed from discharge documents.
The class action lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of five veterans claiming the Pentagon failed to correct this “direct representation of constitutional right violations,” according to CBS News.
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“Requiring LGBTQ+ veterans to first bear the stigma and discriminatory effects of carrying indicators of sexual orientation on their [discharge papers] and then navigate a broken record correction process to seek resolution violates their constitutional rights to equal protection, informational privacy, property, and due process protected by the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” the suit alleges.
LGBTQ veterans challenge discriminatory discharges in a groundbreaking class action lawsuit, seeking justice and equitable treatment. Their fight highlights the broader struggle for equality within the U.S. military. 🏳️🌈 #LGBTQrights https://t.co/VFXSa8jDY6
— The Pink Times (@thepinktimes) August 10, 2023
According to a statement from the plaintiff’s lawyers, some were dismissed under the 1993 Pentagon policy dubbed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, (DADT)” which permitted gay and lesbian Americans to serve as long as they remained “closeted.” Others were discharged due to previous laws that barred them from military service.
These veterans are still carrying less than honorable discharges today, meaning that they do not garner veteran benefits including loan programs, college tuition assistance, health care and certain jobs.
“The currently available discharge upgrade process is burdensome, opaque, expensive, and, for many veterans, virtually inaccessible,” a statement from the plaintiffs’ lawyers reads. “The process not only takes months or years, but also requires veterans to prove that an error or injustice warrants updating their discharge papers to the very entity that caused the error or injustice, despite the government’s own acknowledgement that DADT was discriminatory.”
The suit argues that without proper changes from the Department of Defense, “the government’s ongoing discrimination” against LGBTQ+ veterans will continue.
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