A Decade After the End of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ an Openly Gay Pilot Is Leaving Military Amidst a Climate of Fear and Harassment

For most of his time serving as a pilot in the Navy, Lt. Adam Adamski said he felt supported as an openly gay pilot. A helicopter pilot for a Navy search-and-rescue squadron, the group works closely with the Marines.

That all changed one night in November 2019. According to KPBS:  Adamski was invited to a West Coast Marine Corps Birthday Ball at Pala Casino Spa and Resort. He came back to the hotel room where the Marines had been holding an after-party. “So, when I walked in the room, I knew something wasn’t right,” Adamski said. “The TV had been moved, like on a pivot to face the doorway. And I saw my dress whites draped over and around the TV and there was hard-core gay porn playing.”

It didn’t feel like a harmless prank. It felt like something else, he said.

Adamski had resolved to shake it off but word had spread too quickly and he then he started hearing from other service members. “I received numerous calls from people that are in the closet, in that squadron. Both men and women and openly gay service members. Telling me that they are upset. That the climate, especially for pilots, is not a good climate and they think that I should report it.”

Above: Navy Lt. Adam Adamski is pictured in the cockpit of a U.S. Navy aircraft in this undated photo.

Radio host Steve Walsh who conducted the interview said: The don’t ask, don’t tell policy ended a decade ago, allowing LGBT service members to serve openly. But a study in the Journal of Sexuality, Research and Social Policy found 59% of service members still didn’t feel comfortable coming out to their peers. Sasha Buchert is a former Marine and an attorney with the civil rights organization Lambda Legal. She says changing the law didn’t change the culture.

Three Marines were identified as carrying out the harassment and all Adamski wanted was a personal apology from all three of them. “I wanted a meeting to which they’re there and I can talk to them.”

He also wanted something on their permanent record. Months went by. Adamski filed an inspector general’s complaint after the Marines told their commander that they had made their apologies and repaid the hotel charges for the porn. The incident continued to eat at Adamski.

After 18 months of little to no actionable discipline Adamski was given an option as a Navy officer to retire. Adamski took it. In the next couple of months, his six-year career as a Navy pilot will come to an end but not his quest for some kind of recognition that what happened to him wasn’t right.

“Most people backed down because of all this hassle, and I won’t. And I’m not someone that will back down easily or ever.”

He was in a serious relationship with an Air Force pilot who was talking about coming out of the closet. They broke up after he saw Adamski’s experience.

“I lost a lot. I’m not happy. I no longer feel I’m an effective leader, an officer, a pilot,” he said. “I don’t feel part of the military anymore. I feel segregated.”

Watch the full interview below and read the full transcript on NPR.