A Few Good Gays

The US military has done an about-face on gender and sexuality policy over the last decade, ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, restrictions on women in combat, and transgender exclusion. Contrary to expectations, servicemembers have largely welcomed cisgender LGB individuals—yet they continue to vociferously resist trans inclusion and the presence of women on the front lines. In the minds of many, the embodied “deficiencies” of cisgender women and trans people of all genders puts others—and indeed, the nation—at risk. 

In this book, Cati Connell identifies the homonormative bargain that underwrites these uneven patterns of reception—a bargain that comes with significant concessions, upholding and even exacerbating race, class, and gender inequality in the pursuit of sexual equality. In this handshake deal, even the widespread support for open LGB service is highly conditional, revocable upon violation of the bargain. Despite the promise of inclusivity, in practice, the military has made room only for a “few good gays,” to the exclusion of all others. 

But should equal access be the goal? How did we get from there to here? And where do we go next? In analyzing inclusion as a social movement aspiration, Connell shows that its steep price is exacted through the continued abjection of queered Others, both at home and abroad.

 

Cati Connell is Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Boston University. 

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Dawning of a Kinder, Gentler US Military

Part 1 Repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

1. “The Hard Work to Get Me in the Door”: A History of the Gay Ban

2. “What They Do in Their Private Life, I Couldn’t Care Less”: Striking the 
    Homonormative Bargain

3. “He Acts Straight but He Has This One Thing . . .”: Open LGB Service and 
    Queer Social Control

Part 2 Ending Combat Exclusion

4. “When You Want to Create a Group of Male Killers, You Kill the Woman in Them”: 
    Feminine Abjection and the Impossibility of Women Warriors

5. “My Problem’s Not That I’m Gay; My Problem Is That I’m a Woman”: The Patriotic 
    Paternalism of Combat Exclusion

Part 3 Removing Medical Restrictions on Transgender Service

6. “Once He Saw Them as Soldiers, I Knew We Had It”: The Trans Ban Tug of War

7. “You Can’t Have Three Bathrooms at a Forward Operating Position”: Gender Panic in the
    Transgendering Organization

Part 4 Conclusion

8 . We Will Be Greeted as Gay Liberators?

Methodological Appendix A
Methodological Appendix B
Methodological Appendix C
Notes
References
Index