Senior British Army general set to come out, reports Mail

A closeted British Army general is on the cusp of publicly announcing his sexuality, which would make him the most senior officer in the British Armed Forces to be openly gay, the Daily Mail reports.

The general, who spoke to the Mail on condition of anonymity, is married with children but says he’s been prompted to action “after being angered by a colleague’s warning that such an admission would amount to career suicide.”

“The Armed Forces cannot claim it is an equal opportunities employer when the view persists that any senior officer who announces he is gay will see his or her career go up in smoke,” he said.

Having worked in the British Army for more than 30 years and as a veteran of wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the anonymous general has painted a dispiriting picture of life for LGBT people in the armed forces. He said that throughout his career, homophobic bullying and abuse were common.

“I never considered outing myself until another very senior officer said he believed that admission of homosexuality by a senior officer would be career suicide,” he said.

“I actually felt like saying, ‘Actually I’m gay and it has never prevented me from serving Queen and country’.

“I was furious, but in the end I let the comment pass. But over the last few weeks, I actually started to ask myself whether the time had come for someone of my rank to speak out and to say that you can serve your country at the highest levels of the Armed Forces as a gay man or woman.”

In consultation with his loved ones – he is already out to his close friends and family, including his wife, who has vowed to stand by him – the general says he will make a final decision about whether to come out publicly in the coming weeks.

Earlier this week, Britain’s highest-ranked transgender soldier, Hannah Winterbourne, spoke out publicly about her experiences in the armed forces. Winterbourne’s experiences seem to have been more positive than the anonymous general’s:

“The British Army is a fantastic employer for trans soldiers. We’ve had policies since 1999 and it’s all really, really clear,” she said.