[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 824 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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118th CONGRESS
  2d Session
S. RES. 824

  Recognizing September 20, 2024, as ``National LGBTQ+ Veterans Day''.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           September 18, 2024

  Mr. Merkley (for himself, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Booker, Ms. Hirono, Mr. 
 Blumenthal, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Lujan, Ms. Warren, Mr. Wyden, 
 Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Padilla, Mr. Sanders, Ms. Smith, Mr. Schatz, and 
 Ms. Duckworth) submitted the following resolution; which was referred 
                 to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
  Recognizing September 20, 2024, as ``National LGBTQ+ Veterans Day''.

Whereas lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (referred to in this 
        preamble as ``LGBTQ+'') veterans have honorably served in the Armed 
        Forces in every war to which the United States was a party, beginning 
        with the Revolutionary War;
Whereas LGBTQ+ veterans have served in the Armed Forces despite discriminatory 
        policies based on who those veterans love or how those veterans 
        identify;
Whereas, on April 27, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive 
        Order 10450 (18 Fed. Reg. 2489; relating to security requirements for 
        Government employment), which declared ``sexual perversion'' and 
        ``treatment for serious mental or neurological disorders'' to be 
        security risks and grounds for denying Federal employment;
Whereas Executive Order 10450, eventually repealed by President Barack Obama in 
        2017, contributed to the ``Lavender Scare'' of the 1950s by banning gay 
        and lesbian people from working in the Government, including in the 
        Armed Forces, and was similarly applied to transgender people as early 
        as 1960;
Whereas, beginning in 1963, Army medical standards disqualified people with 
        ``behavioral disorders'', which was defined to include transgender 
        people, from service in the Army;
Whereas, for 30 years, beginning in the mid-1980s, Department of Defense 
        regulations declared transgender people to be both physically and 
        mentally disordered and abnormal and continued to disqualify transgender 
        people from military service;
Whereas, in 1982, the Department of Defense implemented a policy stating that 
        ``homosexuality is incompatible with military service'', and between 
        1980 and 1990, an average of 1,500 military servicemembers were 
        discharged every year on the basis of their sexual orientation;
Whereas, in 1993, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 
        Year 1994 (Public Law 103-160; 107 Stat. 1547), Congress enacted the 
        ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' policy, which declared that the presence of 
        gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in the Armed Forces was an 
        ``unacceptable risk'' to morale, good order, discipline, and unit 
        cohesion, and required the Armed Forces to discharge servicemembers 
        who--

    (1) engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited ``homosexual 
acts'';

    (2) stated that they were homosexual or bisexual; or

    (3) married or attempted to marry a same-sex partner;

Whereas the Department of Defense has acknowledged that 13,472 personnel were 
        discharged from the Armed Forces under the ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' 
        policy, and an additional 19,365 personnel were discharged between 1980 
        and 1993 under similar policies that targeted servicemembers based on 
        sexual orientation;
Whereas the White House estimates that more than 100,000 servicemembers have 
        been discharged from the Armed Forces for their sexual orientation or 
        gender identity;
Whereas, on September 20, 2011, the ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' policy was 
        officially repealed, 60 days after President Barack Obama approved its 
        repeal on July 22, 2011, by signing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act 
        of 2010 (10 U.S.C. 654 note; Public Law 111-321);
Whereas, on June 30, 2016, the Department of Defense announced an end to the ban 
        on transgender servicemembers across all components of the Department of 
        Defense;
Whereas, on July 26, 2017, President Donald J. Trump announced that transgender 
        people would not be allowed to serve in the military;
Whereas, on January 25, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden signed Executive Order 
        14004 (86 Fed. Reg. 7471; relating to enabling all qualified Americans 
        to serve their country in uniform), which repealed the 2017 ban on 
        transgender military servicemembers;
Whereas the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs have 
        taken steps to address the harms done to LGBTQ+ servicemembers and 
        veterans under these discriminatory policies;
Whereas, in March 2021, the Secretary of Defense announced new policies to undo 
        the President Trump-era rules banning transgender people from serving in 
        the military;
Whereas those policies included a statement that the Defense Health Agency would 
        develop clinical practice guidelines to support the medical treatment of 
        servicemembers with gender dysphoria, a step that has not yet been 
        completed;
Whereas, on June 19, 2021, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs announced that the 
        Department of Veterans Affairs would remove the exclusion of gender-
        affirming surgery from the Veterans Affairs Medical Benefits package, 
        but the Department of Veterans Affairs has yet to fulfill that promise;
Whereas, on September 20, 2021, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs issued the 
        ``Benefits Eligibility for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer 
        (LGBTQ+) Former Service Members (VIEWS 5810856)'' memorandum detailing 
        how certain former servicemembers discharged under the ``Don't Ask, 
        Don't Tell'' policy with ``other than honorable'' discharges could begin 
        to access full veterans benefits;
Whereas, on September 20, 2023, the Deputy Secretary of Defense announced that 
        the Department of Defense would proactively review the military records 
        of certain veterans discharged under the ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' 
        policy to identify those who may be eligible for discharge upgrades;
Whereas, on April 25, 2024, the Department of Veterans Affairs posted a final 
        rule eliminating the regulatory bar for ``homosexual acts involving 
        aggravating circumstances or other factors affecting the performance of 
        duty'' as an obstacle to benefits, which could help reduce the disparity 
        that LGBTQ+ veterans face in applying for their benefits;
Whereas, on June 26, 2024, President Joseph R. Biden pardoned veterans who had 
        been convicted in military courts for consensual sodomy between 1951 and 
        2013 under former article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice; 
        and
Whereas challenges still exist for LGBTQ+ servicemembers and veterans seeking 
        equitable treatment in service and access to benefits: Now, therefore, 
        be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) recognizes September 20, 2024, as ``National LGBTQ+ 
        Veterans Day'';
            (2) celebrates the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, 
        transgender, and queer (referred to in this resolution as 
        ``LGBTQ+'') servicemembers and veterans who have served in the 
        Armed Forces;
            (3) regrets the harm done to LGBTQ+ servicemembers and 
        veterans under the ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' policy and earlier 
        policies, bans on transgender servicemembers, and other 
        policies that discriminate based on sexual orientation and 
        gender identity;
            (4) recognizes how ``other than honorable'' and 
        ``dishonorable'' discharges given to LGBTQ+ servicemembers on 
        the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity--
                    (A) prematurely terminated the careers of LGBTQ+ 
                servicemembers in the Armed Forces;
                    (B) subjected LGBTQ+ servicemembers to the trauma 
                of investigations and criminal charges;
                    (C) unfairly denied LGBTQ+ servicemembers the honor 
                associated with military service;
                    (D) deprived LGBTQ+ servicemembers of benefits 
                those servicemembers have earned and deserve as 
                veterans; and
                    (E) continue to cause LGBTQ+ servicemembers 
                dignitary harm;
            (5) urges the Department of Veterans Affairs and the 
        Department of Defense to--
                    (A) continue implementing policy changes that 
                restore justice and right historical wrongs caused by 
                past government-sponsored discrimination; and
                    (B) conduct further outreach for LGBTQ+ veteran 
                communities to ensure that those discharged based on 
                their sexual orientation and gender identity can 
                receive their benefits;
            (6) urges the Department of Veterans Affairs and the 
        Department of Defense to ensure that transgender veterans and 
        servicemembers and their families have access to the full range 
        of health care, including gender-affirming care; and
            (7) urges the Department of Veterans Affairs to remove the 
        exclusion of gender-affirming surgery from the Veterans Affairs 
        Medical Benefits Package.
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