LGBT at USNA

Abstract

This research addresses significant cultural changes in terms of gender relations that are occurring in the United States military today and in particular at the academy level. This article focuses on the LGBT community at the United States Naval Academy and posits that, in order to fully understand and support the success of LGBT midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy, it is important to understand the diversity of the LGBT community in general from a grassroots perspective. Depending on self-identification and the process in self-identification of individual midshipmen, for example, experiences vary greatly. This paper seeks to analyze the experiences of those individuals identifying as LGBT at USNA based on an ethnographic study involving the collection of coming-out stories by and interviews with midshipmen as well as participant-observation research in the community. It is the researcher's initial conclusion that a support network for LGBT midshipmen is essential when it comes to their development as young adults, as officers and as potential leaders in the military.