Author Archives: geoffreyandmika

When I joined the military it was illegal to be homosexual, then it became optional, and now it’s legal. I’m getting out before the Democrats make it mandatory. — Sgt. Harry Berres, USMC

A gay Marine greets his husband upon his return from a deployment.

The Netflix series “Boots” is not “woke garbage,” as the United States Department of Defence alleged. No, while it is fiction, it is good storytelling. I admit, when I saw the trailer and the still images, a part of me rolled my eyes. I suspected it might be a cheesy rom-com featuring queeny ephebes prancing through the United States Marine Corps boot camp. On the contrary, the protagonist, Cameron Cope, is a gay seventeen-year-old high school graduate who chose military service, specifically the Marines, because his good friend had enlisted, and he wanted a change. The story is set in 1990, when male homosexuality was grounds for refusal in enlistment and grounds for discharge. He was reminded of that upon arrival at Parris Island, where a sign at the entrance for induction listed reasons for disqualification that included homosexuality. He kept his homosexuality to himself, though those around him suspected that he was gay.

The U.S. Department of Defense was clear when it issued the following regulation to clarify its stand in 1981:

(DOD Directive 1332.14 (Enlisted Administrative Separations), January 1981)

Homosexuality is incompatible with military service. The presence in the military environment of persons who engage in homosexual conduct or who, by their statements, demonstrate a propensity to engage in homosexual conduct, seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission. The presence of such members adversely affects the ability of the armed forces to maintain discipline, good order, and morale; to foster mutual trust and confidence among service members; to ensure the integrity of the system of rank and command; to facilitate assignment and worldwide deployment of service members who frequently must live and work in close conditions affording minimal privacy; to recruit and retain members of the armed forces; to maintain the public acceptability of military service; and to prevent breaches of security.

Under this regulation, persons having homosexual proclivities were deemed unfit for military service and either refused induction into military service or quietly mustered out with either a general, undesirable or dishonorable discharge if found out after having been inducted. The consequences of the three types of discharge varied in degree of severity. Still, in each, the individual was ineligible for veterans’ benefits and could face discrimination in employment in civilian life. That was the reality in 1990. The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy in the United States Military was not enacted until 1993. So, serving in the U.S. Military in 1990 as a gay man meant you had to conceal the truth about yourself on pain of serious consequences.

As the story unfolded, it was revealed that one of the drill instructors, Staff Sergeant Sullivan, a seasoned Marine with a distinguished service record and a recipient of the Silver Star, was a gay man. Despite his impeccable record, he came under investigation when a man, a Major in the Marine Corps, with whom he had a romance, was outed and dismissed from the service. Despite the support of his commanding officer and enlisted colleagues, he chose to nearly beat a man to death in a bar fight, knowing it would result in a dishonorable discharge from the service. In his estimation, a conviction of aggravated assault of a civilian was preferable to being outed and dismissed in disgrace as a homosexual. The tragedy in his case was that had he held on another three years, he could have continued his career in the Marines—the U.S. Department of Defense is correct in pointing out that in 2025, gay men are free to serve openly. The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and the general ban on gays serving in the military were lifted in 2011. “Boots,” however, is set in 1990, when gay men did not have the option of serving with discretion, let alone openly. So, no, “Boots” is not “woke garbage,” it is well-written and superbly acted by the stellar cast. I highly recommend watching the series.

Posted by Geoffrey

We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. — Archilocus

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I was a gunner in the 30th Field Artillery Regiment in 1980.

Watching the Netflix series “Boots” resonated with me. It brought back memories of my military service as a Reservist in the Canadian Army. I joined the Canadian Army as a recruit in the 30th Field Artillery Regiment in Ottawa, Ontario, late in 1978, at seventeen–a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday. Unlike the characters in “Boots,” I was not a professional soldier, and neither did I experience boot camp. I served on weeknights and weekends, and with the Regular Force during the summer months. I had the opportunity to serve with the Regular Force on the UN Peacekeeping deployments or with the Regular Force in Europe for extended periods, but chose not to. I was a closeted gay youth serving in the Canadian Army when male homosexuality was grounds for dismissal from the service. I overheard once an NCO mention the dismissal of a man from the service because he was caught “butt fucking” another man. Like the protagonist in “Boots,” Cameron Cope, I chose military service because I wanted a change and hoped to form a more positive view of myself. My father was ex-military and hated the Army. He tried to talk me out of it. Interestingly, my high school music teacher, a veteran, also told me I was not suited for military service.

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So, I’m a big Second Amendment fan but I think most politicians are cowards when it comes to defending why we have a Second Amendment. — Charlie Kirk

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The murder weapon used in the killing of Charlie Kirk was a Mauser bolt-action rifle in 30-06 with a scope, a make and model of hunting rifle commonly used in North America. I have several left-hand bolt-action rifles topped with scopes in my collection in various calibres. I use them for hunting small game, varmints and big game. I occasionally visit the rifle range to ensure the rifles are sighted in before hunting. I am a good shot. When you choose to kill a game animal, you want to place the bullet in its vital area to ensure a quick, humane death. The suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk, I will not mention his name, allegedly shot Mr. Kirk in the neck from a distance of two hundred yards. I have no idea of the suspect’s history with guns or whether he was a good shot. Regardless, he succeeded in mortally wounding Charlie Kirk with either a well-placed or a lucky shot. Of course, that is reprehensible. When a hunting rifle is used in a homicide, inevitably, some people blame the rifle, guns and gun owners in general. There is an expectation that I should rethink being a gun owner and hunter because someone used a hunting gun to commit murder.

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Reason obeys itself, and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. — Thomas Paine

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Those of us across the world who are working to end the involuntary genital cutting of boys are at an impasse. We have demonstrated beyond any doubt that intact genitals are as nature intended and debunked the claims that the male prepuce was a vestigial piece of skin that served no purpose. Despite that, cowardly politicians insist their hands are tied because they cannot breach the rights to religious liberty and parental autonomy over their children’s bodies. At least not when boys are at issue. They had no trouble enacting prohibitions on all forms of genital alteration on girls, no matter how minimal, despite the religious sensibilities and autonomy of parents to raise their daughters how they saw fit. Western nations lead an international effort through the United Nations to end female genital mutilation. When Iceland, a European country with a population of 340,000 people, moved to update its legislation in 2018, prohibiting involuntary genital cutting of girls to include boys, the United States intervened. The US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter sent to the Embassy of Iceland, Congressmen Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the committee, and Eliot Engel, its top Democrat, wrote: “While Jewish and Muslim populations in Iceland may be small, your country’s ban could be exploited by those who stoke xenophobia [read anti-Muslim prejudice] and anti-Semitism in countries with more diverse populations.[…] As a partner nation, we urge your government to stop this intolerant bill from advancing any further.” (Times of Israel.) The Amendment to the legislation did not pass.

The thing to remember, also, is that in Iceland and the rest of Europe, the majority of the population does not cut the genitals of boys and girls involuntarily–which might make people think that a ban is moot. Still, one wonders why the ban on cutting girls is not viewed as something that “could be exploited by those who stoke xenophobia” [read anti-Muslim attitudes] in countries with more diverse populations.” Somehow, that only applies if you make the ban on involuntary genital cutting universal by including boys, and that is irrational. Despite these hurdles, the effort to protect boys continues — no one said it was easy. There is an interesting development in the recent controversy over “gender-affirming care” for minors. The issues of religious liberty and parental autonomy are back at the fore in the dispute over the ethics and legality of subjecting children to surgeries and drug therapies that result in the chemical and surgical castration of children whose parents believe they were of the opposite sex into which they were born. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a Tennessee law that prohibits gender-affirming care for minors is constitutional. The challenge to the law was based on the 14th Amendment, with arguments that the ban was discriminatory based on sex and violated the laws and the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children, following their beliefs. The court did not consider the latter arguments in reaching its decision.

Given this development, one wonders how scurvy politicians will justify the involuntary genital cutting of boys based on the superstitions and wants of their parents. Why is it not tolerable to alter a girl’s private parts or allow parents to authorize sex changes on their children regardless of their beliefs, but it is bearable to allow radical and irreversible alterations to a boy’s genitals for no other reason than someone else wants it? Why is the notion that boys have rights, particularly to the integrity and security of their person, so contentious? I am cautiously optimistic that the Supreme Court ruling that upheld a ban on gender-affirming care for minors will cause renewed attention to the ethical and legal issues of the involuntary genital cutting of boys. I hope that the Icelandic parliament will reintroduce its legislation to protect boys and girls alike from involuntary genital cutting and that other Western jurisdictions will follow suit. This invidious state of affairs has gone on too long.

Posted by Geoffrey

I also survived circumcision, a barbaric practice designed to remind you as early as possible that your genitals are not your own. — George Carlin

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I learned what male genital cutting was in high school in health class. The teacher handed out mimeographed copies of pages from a textbook that had crude illustrations. He did this by mistake and hurriedly told us to ignore them, but the cat was out of the bag. Once I knew what it was, I began to think about it. I finally understood why other boys I knew over the years, particularly when I lived in England in the late 1960s with my family, looked different. A couple of years later, while one of my aunts visited, a news story came on the television about male genital cutting. She spoke up about how it could not be done to her firstborn son at birth because of complications following his birth, and that they never saw the need for it later. She had a second son years later, and he was left intact. I remember how pained my father looked when she related that to us. My mother was absent from the conversation, leaving the impression that she was behind it for my brother and me. As I grew older, I came to deeply resent what was done to me.

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The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil. — Hanna Arendt

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Hannah Arendt developed the concept of the banality of evil: “Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.” I am reminded of this when I note the dismay of Intactivists when Facebook posts pop up where a newborn boy is subject to involuntary genital cutting for any reason or no reason. I also note the angry reactions of the parents who do not care for the criticism or condemnation for doing this to their newborn sons. Yes, there is no shortage of people who see nothing wrong with it and will tell you to mind your own business. That and they retort, “Don’t choose it for your son if that’s how you feel!” I watch with interest as Eric Clopper, Attorney at Law and Founder & President of Intact Global, mounts a constitutional challenge in Oregon for the protection of boys from involuntary genital cutting. I stand with him and hope for the best as he and his team of lawyers proceed with the challenge. The challenge is based on the constitutional guarantee of legal equal protection. As the involuntary genital cutting of girls is prohibited in US law (in several states, not federally), the reasoning is that boys deserve equal protection. Though I am neither a lawyer nor a legal scholar, as a well-informed layman, I expect the challenge will be an uphill battle.

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It is a great plague to be too handsome a man. — Plautus

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When I first viewed the photo, the portrait of the two young men struck me. Initially, I could not quite place why, but then it dawned on me. In the summer of 1980, I was a reservist in the Canadian Army. I served in the 30th Field Artillery Regiment based in Ottawa. It was the summer following my graduation from high school and before my enrollment at Queen’s University in Kingston. I went to Canadian Forces Base Petawawa to work as a driver in a transportation company through July and August. I worked with young men from other regiments who were posted there, too–we were in our late teens and early twenties.

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I am the Love that Dare not Speak its Name. ― Alfred B. Douglas

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This self-portrait, taken in Havelock, New Brunswick, shows the simplicity of the intimacy shared by Leonard Olive Keith (1891-1950) and Joseph Austin “Cub” Coates (1899-1965), who lived and loved in the first half of the 20th century. They were two men in love in Canada when male homosexuality was a crime in Canadian law, and public prejudice against male homosexuality was openly expressed. It was as simple as it is in the present. Some men are romantically and sexually attracted to men. It is a natural expression of human sexual attraction and behaviour. To those who knew and loved them, they were Len and Cub, a homosexual couple. To those who reviled male homosexuals, they were beneath contempt. They were what we call normal gays in the 21st century. Len was a harness racing driver who opened a garage after serving as an engineer in the Canadian Army in World War I. Cub was a mechanic who served as an engineer in the Canadian Army in World War I and volunteered for service in the Canadian Army in World War II. They were ordinary men who had a sense of duty, served their King and country as volunteers in the Great War, and found love and companionship in each other’s company. Despite their discretion, suspicion over their relationship in Havelock drove them apart in the 1920s. Len moved to the United States, where he lived out his days. Cub married in 1940. That fate was not unusual for gay men in Canada in the 20th century.

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A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it. — Christian Nestell Bovee

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Life for gay youth in the Heartstopper universe is generally reasonable. The protagonists, Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring—Nick is bisexual, and Charlie is gay—find each other and become boyfriends despite elements of antigay prejudice that linger. They initially feel the need for discretion in their relationship. Naturally, they yearn for privacy also. The scene where Nick’s mum walked in on them as they got close and personal in Nick’s room illustrated the point. It made me think of what life was like for me as a young gay man in the 1980s. I was a student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, in the first half of the 1980s. It was the height of the AIDS crisis, and gay men were the most affected. There was a moral panic; people did not know for sure how HIV was transmitted and feared exposure to the virus. It was seen as a gay plague, something that gay men brought on themselves for their unprincipled ways. Trust me, it was not a good time to be a gay man. Discretion was necessary because the consequences would be dire if you were outed.

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There’s this illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love. That’s completely untrue. Everybody wants to be loved. — Boy George

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I recall when I was in university in 1982. I enrolled in a film studies class, and one of the films we watched was Pagan Rhapsody. There is a scene in the film where two men play a sex scene. Though the scene was as vanilla as possible–there was kissing and a little friendly groping (nothing graphic)–the student audience’s vocal expressions of disgust were notable. In 2024, male homosexuality was generally accepted as a natural expression of human intimacy and treated with sensitivity in film and television. Netflix series such as Young Royals and Heartstopper feature a gay romance and intimacy between high school boys in a way that leaves something to the viewers’ imagination. Both series are immensely popular with younger viewers. Things have changed since the screening of Pagan Rhapsody in 1982. Still, when it comes to public perceptions of intimacy between gay men, there are a lot of people who have an unsavoury fixation on what they imagine goes on when two men are intimate. I get expressions of disgust in the comments on blog posts I write on gay rights advocacy, where people say things like, “There’s nothing more disgusting than two men fucking each other in the ass,” and “Cocksucking is not a men’s issue.” I mean, that is beyond the pale.

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