Dame Kelly Holmes has reflected on her time as a gay soldier and ’30 years of trauma’.
Speaking 25 years after the British Armed Forces’ notorious ‘Gay Ban’ was lifted, the double Olympic champion and retired army sergeant lived in fear of coming out for decades, despite being made an Honorary Army Colonel.
Speaking to ITV News, the retired athlete said: “I was in a career where it’s illegal to be gay, I then left that career where no one in society talked about, you know, sexuality as such. And in a sport where it was just a taboo subject, no one knew anything.
“So even up until the point of 2000 when the band was lifted, that three-year period of leaving the military and that band being lifted, I literally couldn’t say anything. So, I never lived my life authentically then because I was so worried that if I’d said or admitted I was gay, I could still be in trouble. I thought I could be jailed.”
Homosexuality started being decriminalised in the UK in 1967 but a ban continued in the armed forces until 2000. Those who were – or were considered – gay were often subjected to lengthy investigations before being discharged from the military. Some went to prison as recently as 1995.
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