LGBT in the military : Policy development in Sweden 1944–2014

This article contributes to the growing field of research on military LGBT policy development by exploring the case of Sweden, a non-NATO-member nation regarded as one of the most progressive in terms of the inclusion of LGBT personnel. Drawing on extensive archival work, the article shows that the story of LGBT policy development in the Swedish Armed Forces from 1944 to 2014 is one of long periods of status quo and relative silence, interrupted by leaps of rapid change, occasionally followed by the re-appearance of discriminatory policy. The analysis brings out two periods of significant change, 1971–1979 and 2000–2009, here described as turns in LGBT policy. During the first turn, the military medical regulation protocol’s recommendation to exempt gay men from military service was the key issue. During these years, homosexuality was classified as mental illness, but in the military context it was largely framed in terms of security threats, both on a national level (due to the risk of blackmail) and for the individual homosexual (due to the homophobic military environment). In the second turn, the focus was increasingly shifted from the LGBT individual to the structures, targeting the military organization itself. Furthermore, the analysis shows that there was no ban against LGBT people serving in the Swedish Armed Forces, but that ways of understanding and regulating sexual orientation and gender identity have nonetheless shaped the military organization in fundamental ways, and continue to do so.Funding agencies: Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research [2012-0934]; Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences [FOA10Amund-007, FOA12Amund-010]</p

Sexualities in State Militaries

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Palgrave Macmillan via the DOI in this record.The regulation and role of sexuality within state militaries has been a major concern for gender scholars. Militaries remain important national institutions which reproduce and reinforce social norms and hierarchies around gender, race and sexuality and as Paul Higate (2003b: 209) has argued ‘the inscription of heterosexuality into all aspects of culture… is deeply bound up with the… [combat masculine warrior] ethic.’ Moreover the regulation of sexuality within state militaries is not just an issue of equal opportunities for sexual minorities serving within them. Gendered logics shape the politics of war in liberal democratic states and societies because they ‘help to define the objects and subjects of war – who fights, who dies, who or what should be defended, and to what ends’ (Basham 2013: 7). The official regulation and everyday performances of sexuality and sexual identity within state militaries shape, and are shaped by, the need to legitimise state sanctioned violence. [...