Canadian Federal Court judge, Yves de Montigny, recently ordered the refugee board to reconsider the asylum claim of Private Bethany Smith, of the American Army. He urged that it be taken into account the evidence that she was, in fact, persecuted and that her sexual orientation could mean stiffer punishment for having gone AWOL (Absent Without Leave).
Montigny said the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) should have taken into account “the particular environment” an applicant finds themselves in. “It is clear that in the army reigns an atmosphere of unconditional obedience to the hierarchy,” Montingy wrote. “The board member did not seem to be sensitive to this special context.”
Montingy also said the IRB erred by concluding that the beating death of allegedly gay Pfc. Barry Winchell in 1999 at the same Kentucky army base where Smith was serving, which was believed to have been motivated by rumours the victim was gay, was an isolated incident.
Winchell was beaten to death with a baseball bat while he slept by fellow soldier Calvin Glover in 1999. Winchell’s roommate, Spc. Justin Fisher who had goaded Glover into retaliating against a beating he received from Winchell, was found guilty of impeding a criminal investigation.
I say Winchell was “allegedly gay” because it was not another man Winchell got involved with, but a transsexual performer named Calpernia Addams. He met Addams while attending a club with Fisher and other fellow soldiers, which featured drag queens and transsexual performers. The 2003 film Soldier’s Girl is based on the Winchell case.
Pte. Smith currently resides in Ottawa, where she works at a call centre and has assumed the name of Skyler James. While this name change was mentioned in several articles, what it suggests was not.
I suspect that not only does Pt. Smith/Skyler James face persecution on the basis of sexual orientation but perhaps on gender identity as well. “Skyler” seems, to me, to be a masculine name and an odd choice for a woman to make unless there was an issue with gender identity.
On top of that, there is the question of why Bethany Smith would change her name to begin with. One could argue, I suppose, she did so in order to better protect herself from real or perceived threats and repercussions from the American military, but the fact she has gone public with her refugee claim, and both names are revealed in the media, tend to suggest this not to be the case.
It is well known the American military establishment takes a very dim view of lesbian, gay, and bisexual personnel within its ranks. It takes an even dimmer view of transsexuals.
Now, I am not saying Skyler James (formerly Bethany Smith) is a female-to-male pre-op transsexual (which is also why I continued to use the feminine pronoun above), only that the name change tends to suggest the possibility. It will be interesting to see what developments occur in this case.
At any rate, the case of an outed lesbian (she was spotted holding hand with another woman in a shopping mall by a fellow soldier, who then proceeded to out her on base) seeking refugee status based on sexual orientation is unique. A spokesperson for the US military in this case, is quoted as saying neither he nor the American military has ever heard of anyone attempting to seek such status for those reasons before.
Critics, of course, will go after the whole idea of seeking refugee status in Canada for one’s sexual orientation and likely argue she is merely a garden-variety deserter. Smith says she sought a discharge under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy but was informed the paperwork for her discharge would not be completed until after she returned from a scheduled deployment to Afghanistan.
It would seem that despite the Pentagon’s antipathy towards homosexuals and bisexuals serving in its military, it is not so opposed that it will not send them to Afghanistan or any of the other ‘hot spots’ the Americans are involved in.
As Bethany/Skyler has pointed out, part of the issue here is the threats she has received.
“My worst fear is more harassment, being sent to the same unit, [and] being killed by these people who have told me if I returned I will suffer the consequences.”
The practice of ‘fragging’ has been around since at least the Vietnam War. Fragging is controversial, at best, and is not wholly acknowledged as even existing by those in Washington. Fragging is, essentially, the killing by fellow soldiers of a superior officer - and perhaps another soldier - while out on patrol or while in a theatre of war. The idea being that it will be difficult to prove the victim was not killed during a firefight or as a result of ‘friendly fire.’
If Pte. Smith, a mechanic, was in fact deployed to Afghanistan with her former unit she would be in considerable danger. At the very least, one suspects, she would not be able to rely on her unit or individuals within her unit, backing her up or not leaving her behind should she be cut off from them, as is customary (think of Black Hawk Down where it is stated, more than once, ‘we don’t leave our own behind’).
She certainly believes she faces “severe persecution” from others in her former unit if she is sent back to Fort Campbell, and that’s on home territory, not in a war zone. What she would face in the isolation and confusion of Afghanistan is too horrible to imagine.
Being a woman, Bethany not only faces what she described as “harsh gay-bashing” if returned to her unit at Fort Campbell, but also quite possibly rape. Certainly if she was sent to Afghanistan and, purposely or not, found herself trapped behind enemy lines, separated from her unit, and was captured by Afghan insurgents, the probability of sexual abuse and rape would be high.
Of course, it is not just female combatants who face this threat. While not talked about a great deal, it is known in some circles that male prisoners have also been sexually abused and raped/sodomized by their Afghan captors. Rape is a tool to ‘break down’ the enemy and has come to be seen as another weapon in the arsenal of war crimes.
If, as I suspect, gender identity is an issue here, Bethany/Skyler is at even greater risk. Perhaps not from any potential Afghan captors who likely just would not “see” the gender identity issue; to them she would be a female and that would be that. But now that the adopted name of ‘Skyler James’ is out in the public arena, even the least aware soldier could probably figure out what was going on. If reaction to lesbians and gay men can be harsh, imagine what the reaction to some ‘goddamn sex change’ would be?
What makes this case unique, apart from the possibility of a gender identity aspect (and, I hasten to add, that’s only my take on it), is the sexual orientation issue itself.
The IRB has, quite rightly it could be argued, rejected other deserters’ claims for refugee status. In those cases, individuals deserted a volunteer-based army they willingly and freely joined, then fled to Canada when they didn’t like what the military planned for them, such as sending them to Afghanistan.
In this case, Bethany/Skyler faces severe repercussions if deported back to the US and back to her unit. It could be argued she is in danger of abuse from the State and that, last I checked, was a criterion for refugee status.
In this case, the abuse is tied up with her being lesbian and facing physical harm, if not death, at the hands of her former colleagues. That is why she went AWOL, not because she was about to be deployed to Afghanistan. She was in fear for her well-being, even life, not at the hands of Afghan insurgents but at the hands of the very individuals she had been trained to entrust her life.
