From a closeted gay sailor who typed the dishonorable discharges for Korean War servicemen accused of homosexuality, to a lesbian correctively raped by Marines while serving in Desert Storm, these are the stories of LGBT veterans and their decades-long fight for equality in the armed forces.



Throughout 1952, Otto Bremerman sat at his military desk in the personnel office of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, typing up dishonorable discharges for sailors who had been accused of homosexuality. He knew that these sailors had selflessly taken on the same risks as their heterosexual counterparts to serve their country during the Korean War, but because they were gay, they would now suffer the consequences of dishonorable discharge for the rest of their lives. With each keystroke, Bremerman was reminded of his own vulnerability — he was a gay American himself, hiding his identity in a country unwilling to accept his open service.

In many states, from Bremerman’s time until current day, a dishonorable discharge is treated as a felony. All service members with this characterization are barred from future military service, and depending on the severity of the discharge received, they may also be blocked from voting, unemployment benefits, participating in the GI Bill, or receiving veteran benefits such as health care, Department of Veterans Affairs disability, and ceremonial burial rights at military cemeteries. Bremerman’s typing was one cog in a giant military machine that decimated the dreams and careers of thousands of outed servicemen and women. It was a fate he barely escaped himself.

Before he passed away in 2007, Bremerman’s story was preserved in an oral history interview recorded in 1994 and held in the archives of San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society. His fascinating life is now the subject of The Typist, a new documentary by filmmaker Kristine Stolakis that is sweeping the festival circuit.

“I was the personnel man,” Bremerman explained. “When [sailors] got caught doing things on the base or something, I’d written up their discharge, had written up their confessions, and had them signed — did all that bullshit.” Despite his precarious position of authority, Bremerman seized every opportunity available to secretly warn sailors accused of homosexuality before they confessed.