# Don't Ask, Don't Tell (1993–2011) The official U.S. military policy regarding service by gay, lesbian, and bisexual personnel from **December 21, 1993** (when implementing Department of Defense regulations took effect) until **September 20, 2011** (when the 2010 repeal act became effective). Codified at **10 U.S.C. § 654** by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994. ## The Compromise DADT was the product of President Bill Clinton's failed 1993 attempt to fulfill a campaign promise to fully lift the ban on gay service members. Clinton's full-lift proposal collided with the institutional resistance of the Joint Chiefs (especially Chairman Colin Powell), the [[Senate Armed Services Committee]] under Sam Nunn, and the broader political backlash that produced the [[Defense of Marriage Act]] three years later. The compromise: - **Don't Ask** — recruiters and superiors could no longer ask service members about sexual orientation - **Don't Tell** — service members could not openly disclose homosexual conduct, identity, or relationships - **Don't Pursue** — investigations of sexual orientation would be limited (this proved largely toothless in practice) The effect was that gay and lesbian Americans could serve **as long as they remained closeted**. Approximately **13,650 service members were discharged under DADT** between 1994 and 2010 — a number that increased sharply after 9/11, even as critical-skill linguists (especially Arabic-language specialists) were among the most frequent targets. ## Why DADT Was Worse Than It Looked The policy was framed by its supporters as a liberalization (gay people could finally serve in some form), but its operational effect was to **codify and protect** the existing anti-gay military discharge regime that had existed informally for decades. Pre-DADT, gay military service members were prosecuted via Article 125 (sodomy) and Article 134 (general misconduct) of the UCMJ. DADT formalized a separate administrative-discharge process specifically tied to sexual orientation — and dramatically increased the number of discharges in some years. ## Repeal The **[[Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010]]** was signed by President Barack Obama on December 22, 2010 after passing the lame-duck Congress 250–175 in the House and 65–31 in the Senate. The actual repeal took effect on **September 20, 2011**, after the Department of Defense certified that repeal would not harm military readiness. The 2011 repeal did **not** address transgender service — the trans military ban was lifted separately by the Obama Department of Defense in 2016, reinstated by Trump 1.0 in 2017, lifted again by Biden in 2021, and reinstated again by [[Trump 2.0]] via executive order in January 2025. ## Place in the Vault DADT is the **direct policy descendant** of the [[Lavender Scare]] — both shared the core premise that LGBTQ people were uniquely incompatible with federal employment and military service. Its 18-year operation represents one of the longest single periods of formal federal anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination in U.S. history. --- ## See Also - [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] - [[Queer Liberation Timeline]] - [[Defense of Marriage Act]] - [[Lavender Scare]]