The Pentagon has announced that transgender citizens will be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military.
The move will soon bring about the end to one of the remaining bans on service in western military forces.
Department of Defense Secretary Ash Carter laid out a year-long implementation plan and said that it was the right thing to do because Americans who want to serve and can meet qualification standards should be given an opportunity to do so.
Defence has moved to a contemporary policy that provides equality for all couples seeking recognition of their relationship and coverage for children in foster care.
Policy and procedures have been updated to align with community expectations and legislative expectations requirements.
All couples must now provide a minimum of one piece of evidence to support recognition of their relationship.
This week is National Reconciliation Week and carries the theme 'Our History, Our Story, Our Future.'
The week begins on May 27 which marks the anniversary of Australia’s most successful referendum and a defining event in our nation’s history. The 1967 referendum saw over 90 per cent of Australians vote to give the Commonwealth the power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and recognise them in the national census.
The week ends on 3 June which commemorates the High Court of Australia’s landmark Mabo decision in 1992, which legally recognised that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a special relationship to the land—a relationship that existed prior to colonisation and still exists today. This recognition paved the way for land rights or Native Title.
Photo by Department of Defence
Olympian Daniel Kowalski recently addressed a captive audience of Australian Defence Force Academy undergraduates at a dinner celebrating the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia.
The dinner was organised by the Australian Defence Force Academy LGBTI Community and attended by over 80 officer cadets and midshipmen, several members of Defence’s senior leadership group, representatives from Defence People Group, DEFGLIS and civilian organisations working in LGBTI diversity and inclusion.
Air Commodore Alan Clements is the Commandant of the Australian Defence Force Academy and said that the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia dinner had been running for the past four years.
Wing Commander Kathryn (Kate) Carlisle represented Air Force and DEFGLIS by sharing her experiences and views about military LGBTI inclusion at the fifth Outserve-SLDN conference in Washington DC.
Carlisle was a speaker on the foreign services panel of the Outserve-SLDN leadership and spoke about her experiences with inclusion in the military throughout her extensive career.
Her career pre-dates the removal of the ban on homosexual behaviour in 1992. She discussed how repealing the policy and extending benefits to same-sex couples in 2005 had positive impacts for many service personnel.