RAF Considered Lesbians as Employees as Mentally ill
The Women's Royal Air Force considered lesbian employees as mentally ill and tried to “cure” them with psychological treatment, newly declassified documents have revealed.
Jonny Payne
The Women's Royal Air Force considered lesbian employees as mentally ill and tried to “cure” them with psychological treatment, newly declassified documents have revealed.
Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) leaders were urged to think twice about employing women with “masculine characteristics” and were briefed to keep an eye on women recruits who played sport. Commanders were asked to spy on suspected lesbians and observation lists were drawn up until the 1990s, reports the Daily Mail.
The evidence has come to light after National Archive documents dating back to the 1950s - when homosexuality was illegal - were released from their previous classified status.
The documents - held in a file with an un-official title “Perverts” scrawled on the cover - included a 1950s paper entitled ‘A Special Problem’, which outlined concerns in employing lesbian personnel. Lesbians were viewed as a threat to “corrupting” other women and were described as carrying out a “perverted practice”.
As reported by the Daily Mail, the document says: “No one can really help another person to steer clear of the dangers of homosexuality unless she herself believes it morally wrong and has a definite notion why.
“For the unfortunate persons suffering from deeper abnormality psychological treatment is very often helpful.
“But remember it can only be useful if the patient has sufficient insight to wish to be cured.
“For the fortunately rare cases of perverted practice or attempted corruption of other women by talk or example, discharge from the service would be the only course.”
The paper concluded: “It is undoubtedly better that women of this type should not be recruited into a service.”
A 1967 document outlines the procedures for suspected lesbians who were based abroad to be repatriated and to undergo medical treatment or to be immediately dismissed.
Other papers reveal women who shared a bed were not immediately suspected of being lesbians, concluding it was a common means to keep warm, but urged the practice “be stopped immediately”.
A 1960s WRAF employee described the shock tactics used in dealing with suspected lesbians. She told the Daily Mail: “The police arrived unannounced and commandeered rooms from which to spy on suspects. Few people knew what was going on and if they asked they were told something evil was being sorted out.”
The ban on gay men and women serving in the military was scrapped in 2000, while homosexuality was not legalised in England and Wales until 1967. The documents reveal 13 women were thrown out of the WRAF for homosexuality in 1955 and 60 were dismissed in 1970.
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