OutInNationalSecurity

A non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to empowering queer national security professionals.

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

A family photo. A Pride flag. The decision to testify when your career could be at risk.

For National Coming Out Day, we honor the people whose courage helps others imagine a future in national security.

The Courage We Give Each Other:

https://t.co/XuTozRFrGG

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

Why did we build Out in National Security?

Our CEO, Lucas F. Schleusener joins @CdsnRcds's
"Unequal Dialogues" to discuss ONS’s origins, civilian advocacy, and turning equal service into lasting policy.

Listen: https://t.co/gkLM728oLH

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

Happy 251st birthday, @USNavy! ⚓

To everyone standing watch today, and all who have: thank you.

We’re especially proud of the sea service members and veterans in our community, whose service, leadership, and friendship strengthen everything we do.

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

Two new reports examine very different problems facing veterans: suicide and harassment at VA medical centers.

They share a basic question: Can VA see enough to know who it is reaching, where outcomes differ, and whether its systems are working?

https://t.co/GP4NJcK0GA

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

Internship opportunity

[American-German Institute @amgerinst]

Apply by November 1 for a spring internship at AGI!

Interns research issues on transatlantic relations with fellows and staff, write articles for the AGI website, support events, and are introduced to all aspects of a nonprofit think tank.

Learn more: https://t.co/c9QtLPvCw9

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

Wonderful news from Europe.

[Agence France-Presse @afpfr]

🇭🇺🏳️‍🌈 Les députés hongrois ont voté mardi la suppression des dispositions anti-LGBT+ contenues dans une loi de "protection de l'enfance", adoptée en 2021 par l'ancien dirigeant nationaliste Viktor Orban.

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

We’re looking forward to seeing friends and colleagues at @AUSAorg this week. Join us at LGP tomorrow starting at 6:30!

https://t.co/NNS5sog0WP

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

Opening service creates a promise. Keeping it requires lasting protections.

ONS CEO Lucas Schleusener reflects on a decade of open trans service, the Fit to Serve Act, and a path back for those forced out.

https://t.co/xlTdP9nYbh

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

@jmlx_john2 Our CEO, @LFSchleusener , wrote about it for @ForeignPolicy in 2024: https://t.co/40V5sRDHfd

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

An American classic that should be read more and more widely.

[The Gay Aesthetic @jmlx_john2]

John Horne Burns (b. 07 October 1916) was an American writer whose remarkable 1st novel, the best-selling “The Gallery” (1947), became a post-WWII classic and one of the first to depict homosexuality in the military.

Born in Andover, Massachusetts, Burns seemed destined for the respectable life of a bright, well-educated New Englander. Fortunately for literature — and unfortunately for Burns — respectability never quite took hold. He was educated at Harvard and taught at the Loomis School before entering the U.S. Army during World War II. He served in military intelligence in North Africa and Italy, experiences that supplied material for The Gallery.

Set largely in occupied Naples, the book portrayed American soldiers not as square-jawed liberators but as a collection of lonely, frightened, lustful, hypocritical and occasionally decent human beings. Consisting of nine “portraits”, it was the one titled “Momma” that drew the most attention — it took place in a Naples gay bar peopled by servicemen in uniform.

The Gallery was unusually candid about homosexuality. Burns himself was openly gay at a time when being so was professionally hazardous, socially dangerous, and generally considered everybody's business except one's own. Contrary to the establishment’s desire for homosexuals to be portrayed as loathsome creatures only worthy of disdain and death, his novel treated gay men with a sympathy and matter-of-factness rare in postwar American fiction.

Critics noticed. Some were impressed — others presumably preferred their soldiers properly ironed. Regardless, ecstatically reviewed, Burns absorbed the adulation like a damp sponge. By all accounts a nasty piece of work, extremely jealous, and bitchy to a fault, he declared himself equal to Tolstoy, and when Truman Capote’s first novel Other Voices, Other Rooms and the dust jacket photo that accompanied it caused a bit of a sensation, he countered with the comment that Truman looked like a “Mongolian idiot”. He also publicly and loudly declared his rival Gore Vidal’s “gay” novel City and the Pillar to be a dismal failure. Vidal, an early champion of Burns, was stung to the quick, and Gore being Gore, responded in kind. The two writers competed over everything, including which of them was more competitive. Privately, Gore admitted that Burns might be the superior writer. His only true consolation at the time was the grimly accurate prediction that he would outlast him.

Already a heavy drinker and a mean drunk, apparently, Burns felt success gave him license to wax loquacious about other writer’s (as seen by him, all too obvious) failures. In addition to his unfavorable opinions of Vidal and Capote, he took special umbrage with James Michener. Burns felt certain he was a lock for the 1948 Pulitzer Prize and proceeded to act like he was already its recipient, grandly extolling the merits of his 2nd work in progress. Instead, the award went to Michener for his debut, Tales of the South Pacific. This surprise victory launched Michener into commercial superstardom and left a humiliated Burns sucking wind. Harboring an exceptionally deep well of opprobrium for Michener, an embittered Burns spitefully refused to shake his hand when they gathered at a Life magazine photo shoot featuring young wartime writers, and he proceeded to write scathing reviews of Michener's subsequent work. The New York literati took notice. Liquor fueled and oozing venom, his own support soon dried up as fast as his talent.

Having scored considerable success with Gallery, Burns proceeded to demonstrate that literary careers do not necessarily improve with practice. His second novel, Lucifer with a Book (1949), a savage portrait of a boys' school (apparently influenced by his time at Loomis) was poorly received. A Cry of Children followed in 1952 and did little to restore his reputation. The reviews were brutal. Increasingly bitter toward the American literary establishment — and not especially enchanted with America itself — Burns took off for Italy, where he found the “trade” more amenable to his drunken pawing.

He boozed from dawn to dusk, lived recklessly, and acquired a reputation for being brilliant, difficult and spectacularly self-destructive. The promising young novelist who had once seemed poised for a major career instead became one of American literature's more dramatic disappearing acts.

When he died at age 36 in Florence on August 11, 1953, speculation among those who knew him ranged from "he was pushed from a window" to "he took a bullet in the head from an unpaid call boy". The official cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage and sunstroke brought on by abuse of alcohol. His reputation largely vanished with him until The Gallery was rediscovered decades later. Hemingway, who had briefly crossed paths with Burns in Europe, summarized his life as a writer — "There was a fellow who wrote a fine book, and then a stinking book, and then just blew himself up."

Today John Horne Burns occupies an intriguing corner of gay American literary history — talented, caustic, wounded, frequently his own worst enemy, and the author of one extraordinary novel that stubbornly refused to disappear, even when its author did. 🏳️‍🌈

[Washington Blade @WashBlade]

Learn more about Virginia’s queer history https://t.co/txzas8fOuF

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

@lgbt_fund Wonderful to see. Good luck.

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

Remarkable progress in one of our closest allies, joining Canada and the United Kingdom in historical redress efforts.

[Star Observer @star_observer]

LGBTQIA+ veterans & currently serving Australian Defence Force personnel can now apply to have historical homosexuality convictions extinguished from their service records.

Read more: https://t.co/JImBLcQL5f

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

We were proud to do this work alongside Minority
Veterans of America, @iava, @sparta_pride, and partners across the country.

Recognition is the ignition.

https://t.co/GVf1Dau6s6

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

LGBTQ Veterans Day grew again in 2026.

Nineteen states, Washington, D.C., King County, and communities across the country recognized the service of LGBTQ veterans and servicemembers.

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

But the map is not the point. Recognition gives veterans a reason to gather, be seen, build relationships, and turn civic recognition into something more.

[Washington Blade @WashBlade]

Annapolis Pride arrives this weekend https://t.co/IPFozV8fdN

[Hal Brands @HalBrands]

Come work with me and the other good folks at the Kissinger Center! New opportunities for pre and post doctoral fellowships now open for next academic year.

@AWConsortium @KissingerCenter

https://t.co/8hlhiqqa2S

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

Good policy depends on good data. As VA measures progress on veteran suicide prevention, we also need confidence that LGBTQ+ veterans, including transgender veterans, are visible enough in the data to know whether those gains are reaching the full veteran community.

[Leo Shane III @LeoShane]

Annual @DeptVetAffairs suicide data is out this afternoon. Department continues to see improvements in preventing self harm among vets in their system but not among those still outside their reach. Stats still lag two years. https://t.co/QSmxgtA3cF

[OutInNationalSecurity @OutInNatSec]

The people who volunteer to serve deserve fair process when government policy threatens their careers and livelihoods.

Today’s ruling allows these servicemembers to press their claims in court. That matters for accountability, trust, and the integrity of the force.

[The Advocate @TheAdvocateMag]

A federal judge rejected the government’s request to send the case to an Air Force records board, clearing the way for the troops to press their claims in court. https://t.co/u8bEGkhmqK