To mark Pride Month, we’re honoured to welcome DJG Palmer, author of the Babanango trilogy and advocate for LGBTQ+ veterans, as our guest contributor. In this powerful blog post, DJG shares a deeply personal and historically resonant perspective on the evolving journey of LGBTQ+ representation within the UK Armed Forces. From marching at the Cenotaph alongside fellow veterans to penning a moving love story set within the 19th-century military, DJG Palmer bridges past and present with both heart and insight.
As both a storyteller and a passionate supporter of the charity Fighting With Pride, DJG brings to light voices too long unheard, and reminds us of the enduring bonds of service, identity, and pride. We’re proud to share his words and celebrate the progress made, and still to come, with our community this month.
DJG Palmer says…
“When I began making notes for what would become the Babanango trilogy some 25 years ago, I could not have imagined that I would be looking back over a quarter century during which the UK Armed Forces ban on LGBTQ+ service personnel would end, that the late Lord Etherton’s enquiry would result in The Etherton Ribbon for affected veterans, the LGBTQ+ Armed Forces Monument at The National Arboretum, or that I would have been privileged to promote the work of Fighting With Pride LGBTQ+ Armed Forces charity, supporting veterans, serving personnel and their families.
Last November, I marched at The Cenotaph with a mixed contingent, diverse in every sense as we had army, Royal Navy and RAF as well as straight veterans and allies affected by the ban, many of whom have only just received their restorative measures such as berets and cap badge reinstatement, and even more of whom still await their financial reparations from HM Government.
We were a mixed bag mustering on Horesguards and, predictably, drew some interest from the other service groups represented that day. Apart from the usual inter-service banter and ribbing, (“Infantry huh? Well, that ain’t your fault, mate…” etc) the only difficulty was how to get a bunch of ex-squaddies, ex-matelots and ex-air personnel marching in step and with some degree of uniformity! Despite the best efforts of our retired officers, it took a 6’ trans Falklands vet with a booming voice to exclaim “Come on, get it together before we march past the Royals!” for us to fall into step and, as far as I know, for HRH The Prince of Wales was none the wiser!
(We all fell out of step again shortly after… no 10 on Strictly for us that day!)
Now, I reflect on the publication of my Babanango trilogy and my characterisation of two idealistic young men from different classes who were drawn into the army by varied yet similar motivations – the need to belong, the need to prove themselves, pride, ambition, a stead job and the need to escape- and who happen to fall in love against the laws, prejudices and norms of the time.
If you’d met 23-year-old Lieutenant Albert Bond or kindly, handsome 18-year-old Sapper Jack Coleman in one of the public houses around Brompton Barracks in 1878 and asked them how they self-defined, I wonder how they would have replied. I suspect the answer, with varying degrees of eloquence might have been “I’m a soldier” or, more specifically, “I’m an engineer/a sapper”.
When I meet serving members of the armed forces LGBTQ+ community at charity events, conferences or commemorations, that is exactly what they do say, too.
Across the diversity spectrum, today’s serving soldiers, sailors and air personnel will stand in the same uniforms as each other and tell you, if asked, that they are signallers, drivers, ground crew, chefs, their rank and how long they have served… subsequently perhaps their marital or family status.
Like many whose accounts, histories and stories we are now privileged to be able to access from the twentieth century, my two fictional sappers of the nineteenth met and fell in love because they chose, for whatever naïve or brave reason, the army as a path in life, and found each other as a result.
Like many before and since, it took being shipped to a far-off continent and the horrors of armed conflict to place them in a position where they were able to discover themselves and each other and live in their moments for so long as fate allowed it. They were fictitious representations of so many who have been, and who have lived, loved and served together down the ages, often unsung and uncelebrated… certainly unrecognised.
Today, if you ask the many veterans who were deprived of their careers, pensions, medals, friends, homes, families and even in some instances their liberty between 1967 and 2000, many would still self-define as soldiers, sailors or aircrew… what they did and did well, rather than who they were or who they loved.
The fellowship, kinship and understanding between LGBTQ+ veterans is something very special, as it is between most ex-service personnel of any identity or discipline, and I have been privileged to share it. Yet many of those who have since received The Etherton Ribbon for their experiences would now like to rejoin the wider families of corps or regimental associations, former ship’s companies or squadron associations … friends and comrades whom they never chose to be parted from in the first place, and who may now justly recognise their contributions, standing proudly as themselves and flying their own colours, but equally, within their former service communities.”
Find out more about Fighting with Pride at https://www.fightingwithpride.org.uk
