Help & Advice - Concepts of Sexuality

"What's Going To Happen When I Have To Work And Live Next to Gay and Bisexual People?"

You already do! The simple answer is that the odds are you already have been working and living next to gay and bisexual people. You just haven't known who they are!

Can you tell which is the gay soldier? Does it effect their ability to fulfil their role as a serviceman/woman?

One of the most important things to remember, when discussing the whole issue of "gays in the military," is that homo- and bisexual personnel have always been working and living alongside heterosexual personnel - this is not a new situation that has arisen since the ending of the official ban on gay personnel in HM Armed Forces and the introduction of the Armed Forces Code of Social Conduct.

Just because you might never have encountered a colleague who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, does not mean that people with some degree of homosexual orientation are not in the Armed Forces, in your unit, or even among your close friends and workmates. It is fairly naïve and statistically improbable to believe otherwise.

The issue confronting us is not whether or not homo- and bisexually oriented personnel are serving, fighting, sleeping, showering and eating in close proximity to their heterosexual colleagues - it is whether or not they disclose their sexual orientation to their colleagues and how that disclosure might affect those colleagues. This basic fact must always be kept in mind.

Too often, heterosexual people react badly to disclosure by homo- or bisexual people due to the stereotypes and misinformation about homo- and bisexual people that abound in society.