The Defense Department has reached a proposed settlement with tens of thousands of LGBTQ+ veterans dismissed from military service over their sexual orientation. The settlement filed Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in federal district court in San Francisco makes it easier and faster for veterans to upgrade their discharge status to honorable and ease access to health care, loans and tuition assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to court documents. (Monica Roybal/U.S. Air Force)
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has reached a class-action settlement with more than 35,000 LGBTQ+ veterans who claimed they were wrongfully discharged from military duty and denied benefits because of their sexual orientation.
The proposed settlement, which requires approval from a judge, will enable veterans who received other-than-honorable discharges to upgrade their status and request to have their benefits restored, according to court documents.
A court decision is expected within 90 days, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys. The Defense Department indicated in court papers filed in U.S. District Court in the North District of California that it will not oppose approval of the settlement.
The settlement filed Monday in federal district court in San Francisco makes it easier and faster for veterans to have discharge papers changed to remove references to sexual orientation and ease access to health care, loans and tuition assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to court documents.
The military officially stopped banning people who are gay or lesbian from military service with the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011. The policy had prohibited service members from openly discussing or disclosing their sexual orientation without risk of discrimination and discharge, according to court papers.
About 30,000 of the 35,000 veterans discharged because of their sexual orientation received other-than-honorable discharges.
“The pain and injustice of being discharged under discriminatory policies like ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ have lingered for years,” said Jules Sohn, a 46-year-old former Marine Corps captain from California who is among five plaintiffs named in the original claim filed in 2023.
Sohn, who served in Iraq, was involuntarily discharged from military service in 2008, after she began speaking out against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policies, according to court documents.
Veterans who received other-than-honorable discharges were precluded from receiving benefits from the VA unless they could prove “mitigating circumstances” before a discharge review board.
Terms of the proposed settlement enable LGBTQ+ veterans to make an administrative request to have their discharges upgraded to honorable starting in mid-2025 without petitioning the Defense Department, according to court documents.
The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of veterans discharged from the armed forces because they were LGBTQ+ — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, nonbinary and intersex.
Veterans will be able to forgo a lengthy appeal before a military discharge review board. The proposed process for upgrading a discharge to honorable under the settlement will allow veterans to opt in for a group review.
“The settlement is fair, reasonable, adequate and an excellent outcome for LGBTQ+ veterans who have endured ongoing injury resulting from violations of their constitutional rights,” said Lori Rifkin, an attorney with Impact Fund, a legal foundation representing the plaintiffs.
Veterans in the lawsuit are individuals involuntarily discharged from military service because of sexual orientation, as listed on the form called DD-214.
“Each member of the proposed settlement class has been waiting more than a decade for the U.S. military to systematically correct the DD-214s that still carry markers of anti-LGBTQ+ military policies,” Rifkin said in court documents.
Because an individual’s discharge is part of a military record, veterans continued to face invasion of privacy, denial of access to benefits and barriers to hiring, according to the lawsuit.
“My family has always valued service and sacrifice, and I was proud to follow in the footsteps of generations before me by enlisting in the U.S. Navy,” said veteran Lilly Steffanides, 54, of San Francisco, another plaintiff in the lawsuit. “When I joined in 1988, I was determined to serve my country with honor. However, the discriminatory policies of the time led to my unjust discharge, stripping me of my dignity and access to the benefits I earned.”
Steffanides faced harassment while stationed in Newport News and Norfolk, Va., prior to her dismissal from the military and receiving an other-than-honorable discharge, according to court documents. The reason stated was “homosexual” on discharge papers.
Other veterans named in the lawsuit are Navy veteran Sherrill Farrell of Texas and Army veterans James Gonzales and Steven Egland, both from Michigan.
Defendants cited in the lawsuit are Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. The Defense Department referred questions about the proposed settlement to the Justice Department.
The Defense Department will acknowledge “error[s] or injustice” in the records of the veterans and agree to make changes to reentry codes, service characterizations and the narrative describing the basis for the discharge, according to the proposed settlement.
The Defense Department, under the settlement terms, would establish a special process for changing an individual’s discharge status to honorable in cases where “sexual orientation, homosexual conduct, homosexual admission, homosexual marriage, attempt to engage in homosexual conduct or homosexual marriage” were the basis for dismissal, according to court papers.
The proposed settlement will give veterans three years to submit requests for changes to discharge papers.
