Lord Etherton’s Independent Review into the service and experience of LGBT veterans who served between 1967 and 2000 is sobering. The prejudice and mistreatment suffered by LGBT members of the Armed Forces community makes for shocking and uncomfortable reading.
Lord Etherton was the guest speaker at the most recent meeting of our All-Party Parliamentary Group for Women in Defence, where we had the opportunity to ask him about the process of gathering evidence for the report. As we expected, the report makes clear that many of the LGBT people who served during this period experienced unbelievable violence, abuse, and harassment, while serving our country – simply because of who they loved.
I welcome this long overdue review and am pleased that the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary have today apologised on behalf of the Government to those veterans who suffered because of the military’s egregious historic ban on LGBT personnel. It is vital that the service and sacrifice of the LGBT Armed Forces community is now fully recognised and honoured, and we never repeat the mistakes of the past.
To read the full report, click here: LGBT Veterans Independent Review