My concern isn't about troops following or not following orders, but the way the troops treat the service members that are gay. Will they be treated with the respect ad dignity they deserve or will they be subjected to ridicule and harassment? What if the vocal homophobe/evangelical types( I've served with quite a few) demand separate barracks or showers?

I rather epect things to be handled in military order. There is a sexual harassment problem in the military, but primarily from straight males to women, not from gay to straight.

I don't think every gay soldier is going to out his/herself immediately, and I think the majority of them have people in their unit who know already.

Because of the publicity I expect that harassment will be handled fairly quickly and without much leeway as a whole. And as far as I'm concerned the vocal homophobe who demands separate showers can have it pointed out to him that he's been sharing a shower with a gay man this whole time and hasn't been raped yet and he can suck it up and deal with it or trot his ass out of the military altogether.

That said, I'm under the impression, per some military friends, that the number of group showers/barracks are decreasing steadily and have been for a while now.

To the bolded-
A lot(if not most) of sexual harassment involving homosexuals is actually from straight to gay.

For basic training and for most deployed locations group barracks/showers is the norm and only option.

Probably a lot of is is from straight to straight ABOUT being gay actually. And look into the numbers of sexual harassment against women, it's bad. And sexual assault isn't being handled well either.

Showers: Aye, and that is, to my understanding, changing as well, but more slowly. On the 'front lines' in Iraq it may make sense, but "behind the lines" where they cycle off to rest, it's not as necessary, right? They'll manage. It sounds dismissive but really it's just confidence. There's no actual weight behind wanting to sleep in a different room, they're not cuddling naked 3 to a bed or anything. When it comes down to it, if our troops are so scared of a gay person showering with them, they shouldn't be our troops.

I suspect that nothing will really change. As has been previously said, everyone KNOWS who is gay in the military. From my experience in medicine where there is a large number of gay physicians, gay people don't go around telling everyone who'll listen about every part of their personal life. The difference with this bill is that they can't be kicked out of the military if they do talk about it. I doubt very seriously that these service members will suddenly start "gaying it up" because they don't have to worry about being kicked out. They'll go about working in the way they always did, and the heterosexuals that worked with them who always knew they were gay anyway will treat them the same as they always did. As well, they know who are the bigots, and they aren't going to be approaching those guys looking to be best friends.

Exactly. And it's not as if repealing DADT suddenly turned people gay - so the chance that someone was already showering with a gay colleague is likely.

I have a lot of friends in the military, and a lot of friends who are gay and lesbian - it'll be interesting to see where my Venn diagram intersects!

You guys are talking like all military guys are sane :D We are not talking about rational, reasonable, open minded people per se. As Amanda and I have both pointed out, there are some very very very ignorant closed-minded douches in the military. People may suspect/think that you're gay, but because of DADT it's taboo to even mention/joke/make snide comments about it. There are also people who think that DADT=No gays are in the military...seriously!

And our armed forces should be smarter than that.

Seriously.

It is good that this was repealed.

As for the posts about "gaying it up" and whether homosexuals and bisexuals even want to talk about sexual orientation:

Homosexuals want to feel comfortable expressing themselves just as heterosexuals do. Heterocentrism makes heterosexuality the normative and dominant group. This makes heterosexuals comfortable with their sexual orientation to the point where it is second nature. Something simple as saying "I can't wait to go home, I miss spending time with my husband" or "before I was deployed, I met this really wonderful woman" is about sexual orientation. [And, yes, people in the military also engage in small talk (among other things) and, no, most people in the military are not actively fighting in the wars or currently hiding from enemy fire.] It is institutionalized that heterosexuals can feel comfortable inserting (no pun intended) and asserting sexual orientation in even the most random places; and assuming that they are around fellow heterosexuals, often times finding out that they are not around heterosexuals causes the initial pause and awkwardness.

So, this topic isn't about homosexuals "gaying it up" and wanting to constantly say "I'm gay, by the way, I'm gay" but instead about having the ability to be comfortable doing what heterosexuals have always done with their sexual orientation. If DADT is repealed but homosexuals still have to refrain from being comfortable with their sexual orientation, it's the same outcome as keeping DADT. It's just like de jure and de facto segregation, the laws don't change behaviors and outcomes.

I'd like to point out that this is NOT over. There are still levels of certification that have to happen. There's a Facebook DADT page that spells this out, but in short, you want to keep President Obama's feet to the fire over this. In an effort to make everyone get along, this could die on the vine.

The part that makes me laugh about all this is the people who think they don't know ANY gay people. It's no big surprise that they think gay people are out there recruiting when they think all gay people are "Just Jack." If you think all gay people are flouncy, I'm sure you WOULD be afraid of allowing those very few Americans into the military to cause mayhem.

But reality has a way of being a lot less interesting than hysterical propaganda.

Whether or not gay service members want to feel comfortable to express themselves as freely as heterosexual service members will depend upon their environment and ability to put up with the the level of ignorance in their co-workers. Repealing DADT will not suddenly change the attitudes of military personnel who are violently or morally opposed to homosexuality. They should however be safe from being fired for revealing their sexual orientation. No one can be protected from everyone else's opinions. They can be protected from their actions.

This thread is redundant. ;)

Many are.

Indeed! :)

I don't think so. My point was that just because they may not be completely comfortable talking about their sexual orientation with every person they work with, the change in the law will change the outcome. They no longer fear for losing their jobs. That is huge since as a major employer, the military was one of the few employers allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Bigoted co-workers could hold your sexual orientation over your head as a reason for dismissal. That will no longer be allowed. How is that not a change in outcomes? Work isn't about your sexual orientation, and I think that gay service members just want an opportunity to do their work without everyone acting like they can't do their jobs without their sexual orientations interfering. At least that is what my friends have told me.