On behalf of Metro East Pride, http://www.metroeastpride.com/
Lesbian Officer in DADT Case Discharged
July 26, 2010
Belleville News-Democrat, Ill.
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE -- A lesbian Air Force officer who earlier this year became a national symbol of loopholes in the military's controversial "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is set to be honorably discharged today.
First Lt. Robin Chaurasiya, 25, said she plans to spend a few weeks in the St. Louis metro area before heading off to Mumbai, India -- where her immigrant parents were born -- to work full time on a charitable foundation for impoverished girls that she started.
"It's definitely going to be a bittersweet day on Monday," Chaurasiya said. "You can't just deny the fact this has been such a huge part of my life for how many years, ever since I started ROTC."
Air Force Secretary Michael Donley ordered the discharge of the 375th Air Wing communications officer Wednesday under the federal law that bans openly gay servicemembers.
Chaurasiya, whose hometown is Seattle, joined the Air Force by way of a Reserve Officers Training Corps scholarship to the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
But because Chaurasiya is exiting the Air Force early, she has been ordered to pay back some of money that financed her ROTC scholarship -- or about $16,000.
"It's huge," she said of the debt. "It's going to impede anything I do as far as education or getting a loan, things like that."
The flap that surrounded Chaurasiya's decision to disclose her sexual orientation has led her to change her views on whether the military is ready to allow open gay men and women to serve, she said.
"You know, honestly, this whole process has really shown me that change is going to take a long, long time," she said. "I don't have the faith anymore that it's going to happen. In that regard, I'm not sorry to be leaving an incredibly prejudiced and discriminatory institution."
Chaurasiya's return to civilian life is taking place slightly more than a year after she arrived at Scott. Which is also when her problems with the Air Force began.
It all started with an e-mail to her friends updating them about her new situation. In it, she mentioned she had started dating a St. Louis woman.
The list of e-mail recipients included a man she had once dated; he forwarded it to Chaurasiya's commanding officer at Scott. That led to a chat with the officer, who told her, "'If I were you, I would make sure that nobody else makes such claims on my character,'" she said. "And that was what kind of put me over the edge."
She followed up with a memo to her commander declaring she would not deal with him treating her sexual orientation as a problem.
The memo led to preliminary separation proceedings. Feeling certain she would be discharged, Chaurasiya and her then-girlfriend, a St. Louis educator, got married in New Hampshire.
When she returned to Scott, however, Chaurasiya was surprised to learn the Air Force had decided to keep her. A three-star general had determined she was acknowledging her sexual orientation as a way of "avoiding and terminating military service."
But there was one big string attached.
"I was encouraged to keep my mouth shut, basically," she said. "And that's what really irked me about this ruling was that not only are we going to keep you in, but you have to shut up about it."
Chaurasiya made sure the opposite happened. By the end of March, she had contacted reporters around the country who had been writing about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
The resulting media attention proved embarrassing for the Air Force, resulting in renewed discharge proceedings against her.
Chaurasiya's case hit the national spotlight soon after President Obama announced he wanted the military's 17-year-old "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy repealed, as well as the ban on openly gay people serving in the U.S. military.
In April, however, Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Congress to delay repealing the ban on gays in the military until after troops are surveyed on how the repeal should be carried out. That report is not due until Dec. 1.
Original post: BND.com
http://www.military.com/news/article/lesbian-officer-in-dadt-case-discharged.html
