Guidance

Call for evidence

Updated 2 December 2022

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/call-for-evidence/call-for-evidence

About the Call for Evidence

This Call for Evidence is seeking testimony and views from individuals and organisations on the impact of the pre-2000 ban on homosexuality in the Armed Forces. The Review is seeking to better understand the experience of those who served in the Armed Forces between 1967 and 2000 only.

Until 12 January 2000, there was a blanket ban on the presence of homosexuals in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Those serving who were, or were perceived to be homosexual could face intrusive investigations and ultimately be criminalised, dismissed or otherwise forced to leave.

The Government accepts that this historic policy was wrong and has committed to understanding, acknowledging and, where appropriate, addressing the impact it has had on veterans today, in particular in relation to members of the LGBT community.

We will ask questions throughout the Call for Evidence to gather views on:

  • How LGBT personnel were treated in their service lives
  • The impact of the ban on individuals and those around them throughout their lives
  • How being dismissed from Service affected personnel and their families
  • How services for veterans today can be made more accessible and inclusive for LGBT veterans
  • How Government will recognise and accept LGBT Veterans as full members of the Armed Forces community
  • How the Government can acknowledge and appreciate the service of LGBT Veterans and enable meaningful resolution
  • Suggestions for other research that Government can carry out

We understand that some personnel, who were not LGBT, were perceived to be gay or lesbian, and received discriminatory experiences. For ease of understanding those who were or were perceived to be will be referred to as ‘LGBT Personnel’ despite not necessarily being LGBT.

This review is covering 1967 to 2000, because in 1967 the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts in England and Wales. Decriminalisation was extended to Scotland by the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 and to Northern Ireland by the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982. Although homosexuality was decriminalised, it still remained an offence until 2000 in the military.

Please be aware that you should be an adult, 16 years or over, to take part in this consultation.

Ways to provide evidence

You can provide evidence through:

If it is not possible to submit evidence through the online response form, you can:

  • Download questionnaire and email to us
  • Download and print questionnaire and post to us
  • Request a printed copy
  • Provide audio testimony

The Royal British Legion have set up a helpline number to support LGBT Veterans and others sharing their stories with the Independent Review. If you require support or need help over anything raised in the Review please call 0808 801 0653.

You can also access a list of national services that offer support to veterans. There may also be services local to you.

Online response form

The survey has a ‘save and continue’ option, so you do not need to complete the survey in one go.

You may like to have a look at all the questions first before answering.

Download questionnaire and email to us

Download the questionnaire that is most relevant to you, complete it and email to contact@lgbtveterans.independent-review.uk with the subject ‘Completed questionnaire’.

Fersiynau Cymraeg:

Download and print questionnaire and post to us

Download the questionnaire that is most relevant to you, complete it and post to

Freepost LGBT VETERANS INDEPENDENT REVIEW

Fersiynau Cymraeg:

Request a printed copy

Email us at contact@lgbtveterans.independent-review.uk with the subject ‘Request a printed questionnaire’. You can also request this via post by writing to:

Freepost LGBT VETERANS INDEPENDENT REVIEW

Please enclose your address for the purpose of delivery and which section of the questionnaire you require from the below options:

Fersiynau Cymraeg:

Your details will not be kept.

Provide audio testimony

Please read the guidance on providing audio testimony (ODT, 811 KB). You can provide this stand-alone or as a suppliment to testimony you have already provided by other means.

If you would like to provide audio testimony but are unable to use the method in the guidance, please contact us at contact@lgbtveterans.independent-review.uk.

Duration of the Call for Evidence

The Call for Evidence will last 20 weeks and will close on 1 December 2022.

Audience

Responses are welcomed from all those who served in the UK Armed Forces and their families, and from academics and organisations with an interest in the UK armed forces.

In order to help us analyse responses, we ask that respondents specify the part of the country in which they live. This will help us identify areas with low response rates.

This Call for Evidence is aimed at five main respondent groups

LGBT veterans who served in the UK armed forces between 1967 and 2000 

The ban on homosexuality in the Armed Forces was indiscriminate in its persecution. Gay men, lesbian women, bi-sexual people and transgender individuals were all dismissed or forced out of service by the ban.

Although not specifically aimed at transgender people, the ban could have also affected those with gender identity issues, whose behaviour may have caused others to suspect that they were homosexual.

As all these groups were affected by the ban, we want to hear from lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans personnel who served in the armed forced between 1967 and 2000 about their experience.

We also want to hear about those who were perceived to be homosexual, but were not, and affected by the ban.

Other military personnel who served between 1967 to 2000

We want to hear from other military personnel about the impact of the ban.

We are especially keen to hear from those who also served during this period and who were involved in implementing and enforcing the ban - military police, medical personnel and legal officials.

If you witnessed the effect of the ban, we also want to hear from you.

Families, friends and representatives of LGBT personnel who served between 1967 to 2000

With the ban ending over 20 years ago, we fully understand that there are some LGBT veterans who served under the ban who have now passed away or are not able to respond to the Call for Evidence. In these cases, we are interested in hearing from families, friends or representatives of LGBT personnel who served during this period to tell and share the story of their family member.

Academics and others who work in this area

We are also interested in hearing from academics, researchers and other individuals who have an interest in LGBT and veteran policy.

Organisations and third parties (charities, policy institute etc.)

If you are an organisation which works with veterans, military personnel, LGBT people or similar, we would be interested in hearing your views.

Serving personnel

The Ministry of Defence welcomes the opportunity that this review gives to its current Service Personnel who were serving prior to Jan 2000. It is right that their personal experience is heard by the Review. Serving personnel should be aware that when engaging with the Review they ensure that they do so in a personal capacity; that they should only comment on personal experiences and not matters of policy; and they should not reveal private information about other people.  If in doubt they should consult their Chain of Command.

Confidentiality of responses

We understand that having to provide details about your personal experiences when responding to the Review’s questions might be difficult. We take this very seriously and have included a list of resources for people to obtain support.

Before you take part, you should also be aware of the following:

  1. Participation in this Call for Evidence is entirely voluntary. We are keen to hear the views of as many people as possible.
  2. We want to reassure you that we will not seek to identify you through the responses you provide. To make sure of this, we ask you not to provide identifying information such as names, address etc. We may want to get in touch with some LGBT Veterans to ask further questions. If you are interested, there is an opportunity to provide your name and contact details at the end of the survey. This is completely voluntary. These details will be held separately from your response.
  3. LGBT veterans have the opportunity to provide a service number, for us to verify. This is to ensure that we have an accurate understanding of the views of service and ex-service people. The number may be shared with the Ministry of Defence for verification. Provision of your service number is voluntary. No record of service numbers will be kept by the Review nor MoD after the Review is finalised.
  4. All questions are optional. Feel free to complete as many as you wish.
  5. At the end of the survey, for individuals, we will ask some questions about you, such as your age, your ethnicity and the part of the UK in which you live. These questions help us understand more about how people’s experiences vary. These questions are also voluntary.

The Civil Service is committed to ensuring high standards of conduct in all that it does. For Civil Servants these standards are enforced by the Civil Service Code and departmental policies. If, in the course of their work, a civil servant comes across something that they think is fundamentally wrong, illegal or endangers others within the department or service users and members of the public, civil servants are able to raise concerns through their employing Department’s Raising a Concern (Whistleblowing) policy, or under the Civil Service Code with the Civil Service Commission. In circumstances where there is evidence of criminal or unlawful activity or a risk of harm, concerns may also be raised with external agencies such as the Police or a regulatory authority.

Enquiries

Please direct all enquiries about this Call for Evidence to

contact@lgbtveterans.independent-review.uk

You can also write to the Review team at:

Freepost LGBT VETERANS INDEPENDENT REVIEW

Before you complete the Call for Evidence, please read our confidentiality of responses and privacy notice.

Next steps

Once the Call for Evidence has closed, the Review team will review and analyse the responses received. We will then publish a report of what we found and make recommendations to the Government.

If you need support

Read a list of national services that offer support to veterans. There may also be services local to you.

Privacy notice

Please see our privacy notice.

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