Sexual orientation in the United States military

The United States military formerly excluded gay men, bisexuals, and lesbians from service. In 1993, the United States Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, a law instituting the policy commonly referred to as "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT), which allowed gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to serve as long as they did not reveal their sexual orientation. Although there were isolated instances in which service personnel were met with limited success through lawsuits, efforts to end the ban on openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people serving either legislatively or through the courts initially proved unsuccessful.

In 2010, two federal courts ruled the ban on openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual service personnel unconstitutional, and on July 6, 2011, a federal appeals court suspended the DADT policy. In December 2010, the House and Senate passed and President Barack Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, and under its provisions, restrictions on service by gay, lesbian, and bisexual personnel ended as of September 20, 2011.

According to a RAND Corporation report, a 2015 survey of over 16,000 service members found that 5.8% of the respondents identified as being lesbian, gay or bisexual.^[1] When separated by gender, 1.9% of males identified as gay and 2.0% as bisexual,^[1] while 7.0% of females identified as lesbian and 9.1% as bisexual.^[1]