Beginning in the McCarthy era, more than 30,000 men and women were kicked out of the military on charges of homosexuality. Among them was Helen Grace James, who some six decades later began the fight for an honorable discharge for herself—and other affected veterans. Alta Live sits down with Elizabeth Kristen, an attorney who has been working with James and other veterans to correct the history of their service, and Jules Sohn, a former Marine who left under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Do not miss this conversation with this brave activist as we discuss the history of America’s LGBTQ servicepeople, their journey to obtain honorable discharges for veterans, and what the future may look like for the U.S. military under a new presidential administration. Join us.

About the guest:

Elizabeth Kristen is the Legal Director at the California Women’s Law Center. Kristen served as a public interest lawyer at Legal Aid at Work for 22 years prior to joining CWLC. She began her public interest career as a Skadden Fellow. Kristin graduated from UC Berkeley School of Law in 2001 and served as a law clerk to the Honorable James R. Browning on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In 2012–13, Kristen served as a Harvard Law School Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow, was named a Northern California SuperLawyer and a California Lawyer of the Year, and has been a lecturer at Berkeley Law School since 2008.

Here are some notable quotes from the event:

  • On being discharged from the military: “They arrested me and I had an officer with me at all times—even if I went to the bathroom—and I was grilled, and grilled, and grilled for hours. Finally, they came to talk about my family and they asked, ‘What did you think about your mother? What did you think about your sister?’ And after all the hours, that’s what it ended up as. I decided I could not go on with this. And I said, ‘You write down anything you want to, and I will sign it.’” —James
  • On serving during the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy: “I thought to myself, yes, I could be a Marine, and I don’t need to tell anybody about my personal life. And I realized that that’s not very realistic because you start to feel paranoid, and things were starting to happen where I was starting to get really stressed out because rumors started going around about my personal life. And under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, which was, basically, it was a nice way of saying, ‘Yes, you can serve, but only if you don’t say anything; only if you don’t tell anybody.’ For me, I realized, hey, you know, I don’t know if I can continue to serve in this capacity.” —Sohn
  • On the class action lawsuit: “I am cautiously optimistic, like Jules, that our particular effort will be successful. The agreement has been signed, and the Department of Defense has already committed to this. The notice is actually still on the Defense Department’s website. So there’s been no indications to us that this effort will be slowed down. Am I concerned? I think anyone who cares about LGBTQ issues, women’s issues, racial equality, should be concerned about this Secretary of Defense and this administration, but I don’t have any current concerns about our lawsuit. This is really about righting historic injustices, which I think is so important. If we’re going to go forward, and we're going to create our more perfect union, we have to fix the wrongs of the past.” —Kristen
  • On advice for LGBTQ people joining the military now: “Don’t be afraid. Don’t subject yourself to fear or bad talk yourself. We know who we are. We know what we want to do. We want to serve. We want to be helpful to people. Don’t succumb to fears and hate, and just [place] one foot after the other and just do what you do that you know best. Take care of yourself and the people that you love and know.” —James

Check out these links to some of the topics brought up this week.