#like serving under dadt and the deployment

[apartmentsmoke]

have we considered Buck finding these photos, or ones like them, when he's staying over at Tommy's? he's idly poking through drawers and finds them and his mouth goes dry. because he knows Tommy has his ears pierced, and he knows Tommy wasn't always the put-together he knows, but seeing photographic evidence of that is... he traces the earrings with one finger, the ridiculous outfits, the reminder that Tommy had an eventful, wild life like he did.

he's been staring at them long enough that Tommy comes to find him, and he laughs when he sees them, says "wow, those are from my army days, i forgot they were there" and then he looks at Buck. and Buck looks back at him. and Tommy goes "oh" and pivots to "see something you like?"

and all Buck does is nod, and Tommy smiles at him, big and crinkly, goes to sit down next to him, says "tell me about it."

[stele3]

I never got past season 3 of this show and don’t know how old this character is supposed to be, but I just looked up the actor, and he was born in the same year I was. Also, I served in the U.S. Army under DADT.

*cracks knuckles*

As a gay kid, the main messaging he would’ve heard about homosexuality was the AIDS crisis. The Reagan administration covered the entirety of his childhood, along with a pervasive, callous disregard for anyone in the gay community. They’d brought this on themselves, you see. “Homosexuality” as a word evoked disease, drug use, and homelessness.

Things got a little better in the 90’s with the Clinton administration. Ellen came out in 1997. If you want to talk about seismic changes in the national media landscape, that would’ve been the real one for our generation. Tommy and I were 13 when that happened. I read the Time magazine article furtively in the bathroom, with the cover bent backwards so no one else who came in to poop would notice it in the “reading materials while you poop” basket. It was the first time that I knew of someone coming out willingly, and not being ashamed.

Then Matthew Shepard was murdered. Yes, it was horrific — but a lot of people were horrified by it, and that in and of itself was…kind of a good thing? In an awful way? I don’t know, man, I was 14 and except for Ellen, everything I’d been told up to that point in my life was that gay people died and that was normal, but suddenly everyone was upset about this boy being murdered. It changed things. In the worst way possible, but conversations shifted after that. Even a lot of homophobes changed their tune, saying they didn’t want to see gay people getting murdered, they just wanted us to get treatment. If Tommy had a bad home life (which it sounds like he did, judging from the GIFs I’ve seen), then the military would have been his best chance at escape. It was for me. Yeah, DADT sucked, but it was better than the witch-hunts that happened before that point, when queer servicemembers were actively hunted down. Being in the military under DADT made you lie. Constantly. Sure, “don’t tell” works in concept but when you’re just getting to know people there’s a thousand lies you have to tell in order to have a normal conversation. It becomes second nature to you. He would’ve been joining up shortly after 9/11, when America was in full jingoistic fervor. Depending on when he joined, his first tour would’ve been Afghanistan or Iraq.

The thing about being in the service when big things happen in the civilian world is, you don’t actually experience them the same way. Tommy was probably in the military when Obergefell vs Hodges happened and homosexuality was made legal in all 50 states. He might’ve been overseas on deployment. Either way, it might not have meant that much to him, actually. He was in the military. If someone found out he was gay, he still would’ve faced punishment. The big one that would’ve mattered to him would have been the repeal of DADT in 2010. Now, service contracts usually last 8 years. If you’re active duty then it’s 4 years active duty and 4 years inactive reserves. Unless Tommy re-upped his contract, he would’ve been getting out of the military, ironically, right around the time that DADT wasn’t a thing anymore and he could’ve served openly, without lying.

I’ll be honest, the amount of progress and social change I’ve seen in the last, like, 15 years has been a huge whiplash. Tommy and I grew up hearing about homosexuality as a terrible thing, a death sentence, and now I can get HRT mailed to my house. Speaking as someone who also, coincidentally, has a younger partner (there’s 10 years between my wife and I), the difference between our life experiences is — enormous. Sometimes I feel weirdly stunted compared to her, because she grew up in a time and place where being queer wasn’t a horrible thing, and even though I have some parts of my life figured out more than she does, in other ways…she’s so much less fearful than I am. So much more confident.

Oh yeah, and Glee was a fucking blip on the radar. In terms of media upheavals, it would’ve been Ellen then Will & Grace, neither of which really presented Tommy, a masc man, with a strong sense of belonging. The media depictions of queer people in our generation were very particular and limited. You youguns have NO idea how good you have it.

i do think “tommy was a legal adult when it became legal for gay people to have sex in the privacy of their own homes in all fifty states via supreme court decision which can be over turned at any time” would have been a better benchmark for the josh speech than glee but what do i know i’m just a person who isn’t interested in sucking ryan murphy’s dick