Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13 – 30
www.elsevier.com/locate/wsif
‘‘Dykes’’ or ‘‘whores’’: Sexuality and
the Women’s Army Corps in the United States
during World War II
M. Michaela Hampf
Anglo-Amerikanische Abteilung des Historischen Seminars, Universität zu Köln, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923, Cologne, Germany
Synopsis
When the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) was founded in the United States in 1943, utilizing American womanpower was a
matter of military expediency. At the same time, military service provided many women with mobility, education, and greater
economic and personal autonomy. Women soldiers were subject to rumors and hostility by the public and media that found the
stereotypical ‘feminine’ to be irreconcilable with the stereotypically masculine ‘soldier’ and considered both lesbian and
heterosexual women’s sexual agency a threat to military masculinity and established gender roles. Archival records of the US
Army show that women’s sexuality was controlled by discourses of desexualization and/or hypersexualization, by policies
denying their sexual agency and of their victimization. The WAC leadership created an image of the ‘‘respectable’’ female
soldier based on assumptions about the class and race nature of sexual morality. During the Second World War (WWII), military
psychiatrists’ focus on homosexuality shifted from criminal to medical concepts. Concerns over lesbianism in the Corps, which
was the apotheosis of cultural anxieties over women’s entrance into the military, highlight the performative nature and the close
connections between the categories gender and sexuality.
D 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
A women’s Army to defend the United States of
America! Think of the humiliation. What has
become of the manhood in America, that we have
to call on our women to do what has ever been
the duty of men?1
In more and more Western societies, women play
increasingly important roles in the armed forces.
More than 60 years after the above quoted statement
was made in the congressional debate over the
establishment of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps
(WAAC), the conflicts expressed in it still strike a
0277-5395/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2003.12.007
familiar tone. Present debates on women soldiers in
combat or multinational peace operations and on
those killed, wounded or taken prisoner in war zones
show that military masculinities and femininities are a
highly contested terrain. Whether women soldiers are
perceived as threatening military efficiency or whether, on the contrary, their presence is hoped to ‘‘civilize’’ peacekeeping forces and to promote the
success of nation-building and conflict-resolving
tasks—these debates highlight the close links between the categories gender and sexuality (Elshtain,
1987). This contribution attempts to shed light on the
discursive construction of women soldiers’ sexuality
during World War II (WWII). As the categories
14
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
‘woman’ and ‘soldier’ in the United States of the
1940s were thought to be immensely difficult, if not
impossible to reconcile, lesbian soldiers were doubly
othered. They were silenced and rendered invisible in
order not to challenge society’s and the military’s
established androcentric, heterosexist order. ‘The military closet comes in ‘‘White’’ and ‘‘Colored’’, ‘‘His’’
and ‘‘Hers’’ versions [. . .]’ (D’Amico, 1996, p. 3).
The different forms of women’s identity and agency
examined in this article are situated in the larger
historical context of gender and sexuality in the
military in order to avoid what Penn (1991, p. 190)
calls ‘‘a gendered history that is desexualized or a
sexual history that is degendered’’. My aim is to
understand how military culture and military power
operate to construct and legitimate the asymmetrical
social positions that produce intelligible bodies and
the fiction of binary categorical identities. While I am
not arguing that the inclusion of women in a military
that depends on their exclusion, is per se subversive,
understanding the dispositif of sexuality at work in
the military could be a first step in thinking a nongendered, civil/ized concept of citizenship.2
I will first examine a few examples of the
military, political and cultural discourses and representations that surrounded the Women’s Army Corps
(WAC) and show how they are structured by the
category gender.3 The category sexuality and its
implications for the concept of the citizen –soldier
is the focus of the second part. With the inclusion of
women in the army, there appeared lesbian soldiers
who seemed to threaten both the carefully constructed ‘‘respectability’’ of the women’s corps as
well as the ‘‘genderedness’’ of the established military order. A major shift occurred in the way the
military organization encompassed and subordinated
its members’ sexualities when physicians and psychiatrists introduced the concept of homosexuality as
a mental illness that came to replace the concept of
sodomy as a criminal act before and during World
War II (Duberman, Vicinus, & Chauncey, 1989;
Greenberg, 1988). The third part will focus on this
shift and on the specific problems the Women’s
Army Corps faced in applying the new psychiatric
categories of homosexuality to women. In the fourth
part, I consider the effects of the newly implemented
policy of medicalization on women soldiers by
looking at US Army records from the National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA), other
military and civilian archives and manuscripts from
the Library of Congress. Two case histories of
formal investigations against women indicted as
lesbians at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia frame the terrain in which Wacs negotiated their identities
through practices of subjection (Butler, 1997, p. 2).4
The construction of the woman soldier
The construction of the woman soldier in the
Women’s Army Corps during World War II was based
on the intersection of gender, race, sexuality and class.
The military is a gendered and hierarchical institution
in which ‘‘widely disseminated cultural images of
gender are invented and reproduced’’ (Acker, 1992,
p. 565; Shaw, 1991). Within the military institution,
gender is present in different, but interdependent and
overlapping processes, practices, images, ideologies,
and distributions of power. Historically, the emergence of nation states was closely linked to the
professionalization of the armed forces. In the process,
the military came to be seen as a symbol for the
sovereignty of the state—the concepts of citizen,
soldier and man fused and the figure of the male
warrior had to be legitimized through the necessity to
protect ‘‘womenandchildren’’ (Eifler, 1999 cited in
Enloe, 1999, p. 157; Eifler & Seifert, 1999). Military
institutions utilize ‘‘gender technologies’’ (De Lauretis, 1987) in order to foster an ideology of heterosexual masculinity that transgresses the boundary of the
military and permeates civilian discourses.5 In the
tradition of late 18th century, bourgeois revolutions
as well as in the American republican tradition of the
citizen – soldier, military service and citizenship are
closely linked. Participation in the military has served
and continues to serve as a determinant of the rights of
citizens. Kerber (1998) has traced the link between
citizenship and the right and obligation, respectively,
of bearing arms from pre-Revolutionary times on. She
shows how the concept of citizenship became tightly
linked to race and manhood, which was sharply and
ritually contrasted with effeminacy. The construction
of a hegemonic military masculinity is centered on
combat, its mythical core, and has depended on the
exclusion of the ‘‘other’’, the ‘‘overt homosexual’’,
the ‘‘feminine’’, the ‘‘ethnic other’’.
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
In World War II, the military occupational structure changed significantly. Due to technological
factors, its emphasis shifted from the combat arms
to a much larger administrative and technical support
apparatus. The military required a growing number
of skills that resembled those needed in the civilian
workplace (Moore, 1996, p. 25). Thus, the military
could employ women and ethnic minority personnel
to work in communications and clerical functions
without changing the organization’s stratified structure. The officer elite was still made up of white men
while African American men and all women were
excluded from leadership positions in combat. Although only 12% of all male soldiers saw combat
during World War II, the status as ‘‘warrior’’ and
‘‘protector’’ was reserved for white men, reinforcing
white women’s role as the ‘‘protected’’ and, in turn,
African American women’s role as ‘‘unprotected’’
(Meyer, 1996, p. 85).
African American women thus found themselves
in a double minority position. They were confronted
with racial constructions of gender and gendered
constructions of race that influenced every aspect
of their service. Most Army posts were segregated
even in states that had no segregation laws, although
the Army claimed it was merely following local laws
and practices (Meyer, 1996, p. 90). In contrast to the
assignment of traditional ‘‘women’s work’’ to Wacs,
the WAC leadership had no intention to undermine
the Army’s system of racial segregation. African
American servicewomen also faced specific resentment by African American male soldiers. Charity
Adams Early, commander of the 6888th Central
Postal Directory Battalion in Europe, remembered
that ‘‘the presence of successfully performing Negro
women on the scene increased their resentment. [. . .]
The efforts of the women to be supportive of the
men was [sic] mistaken for competition and patronage’’(Early, 1989, p. 187). Many African American
Wacs, as well as their supporters in the African
American community, saw their service as part of a
larger struggle for racial justice. In several instances,
their resistance against discrimination, segregation
and malassignment foreshadowed the protests of
the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960
(Meyer, 1996, p. 5).
Although not formally incorporated before the 20th
century, women had long been part of military forces
15
of the United States. The first permanent women’s
military branch to be established, the Women’s Army
Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was created by act of
Congress on May 15, 1942.6 Oveta Culp Hobby,
formerly chief of the Women’s Interest Section of
the Bureau of Public Relations of the War Department, became the first director of the WAAC. Hobby,
a Texan involved in various ‘‘women’s activities’’, the
wife of the former Texan governor and a former state
legislator herself, stated that she was ‘‘about as
unmilitary a person as ever existed’’. When Hobby,
‘‘[a] slender, quietly pretty, very feminine woman, a
Southern lady with an aura of breeding and gentility,
wearing a straw sailor hat and a stylishly plain suit
[. . .]’’ took her oath of office on May 14, 1942, her
appearance certainly posed no threat (Hock, 1995;
Pogue, 1973, p. 107). Although the Auxiliary Corps
Act gave women only partial military status, fears
were voiced that a situation would result in which
‘‘women generals would rush about the country
dictating orders to male personnel and telling the
commanding officers of posts how to run their business’’ (Meyer, 1996, p. 44). On July 1, 1943, Congress converted the Auxiliary Corps into the Women’s
Army Corps (WAC) which was part of the Army and
thus assigned the women soldiers full military status.
The WAC provided women ranks and pay comparable
to those of their male counterparts but at the same
time limited their options and made them subject to
the Army’s disciplinary code.7 In total, 140,000 women served in the Women’s Corps during WWII
(Treadwell, 1954).
Women’s entrance into the Army was accepted
by male officers and political leaders under the
banner of expediency. In mobilizing for WWII, the
creation of the women’s corps allowed the Army to
fill the increasing number of clerical tasks or ‘‘women’s jobs’’ with semimilitary personnel in order to
free male soldiers for combat positions. In general,
areas of deployment of female soldiers were similar
to their job opportunities in the civil labor force. As
a labor resource for military planning, auxiliaries
were more reliable than civilian employees because
only personnel with (some) military status could be
controlled 24 h per day. What was most important
for military planners was that the military, not
civilian legislators, could control and discipline these
women.
16
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
A number of civilian and military groups had
dramatically conflicting visions about the concept of
‘Female Soldiers’. During WWII, the influence of
white women’s rights organizations was rather limited. Most of them did not stress the connections
between military service and citizenship, but saw in
women’s service a temporary sacrifice and contribution to the war effort which was not expected to take
part in the reorganization of gender roles in a postwar
society. African American press and women’s organizations, such as the National Council of Negro
Women, and socialist women did, in contrast, point
out the importance of military service, not only for the
advancement of African American women but, generally, for the progress of the equal rights cause and
greater justice in the postwar society (Erenberg &
Hirsch, 1996; Litoff & Smith, 1997; Moore, 1996).8
Mobilization and the massive wartime migration
offered many women increasing access to jobs,
wages, the possibility of economic autonomy and a
decrease in parental control. Along with more than 16
million men who became soldiers, nearly as many
civilians—most of them women—left their homes.9 In
the civil work force as well as in the military,
participation of women as breadwinners or soldiers
was seen as deviant from existing gender roles, but
nevertheless necessary to win the war (D’Emilio &
Freedman, 1988, p. 260). Opponents to even a temporary participation of women felt that not only the
efficiency of the military was threatened, but also the
traditional system of male dominance and the roles of
female homemaker and male breadwinner were challenged. Increasing economic and sexual independence
of women subverted the roles of the ‘‘protector’’ and
the mythical spaces of ‘‘front’’ and ‘‘home’’ (YuvalDavis, 1999).
The WAC bill was also vigorously opposed by
women’s peace organizations, in part in an uneasy
alliance with right-wing organizations: Mildred Scott
Olmsted of the Women’s Committee to Oppose Conscription (WCOC), declared in a radio broadcast
‘‘Women are naturally and rightly the homemakers
[. . .] They play their part during the war by ‘keeping
the home fires burning’’’ (Kerber, 1998, p. 249). The
far-right group Mothers of Sons warned, ‘‘this bill
would nationalize our women and complete the sovietization of our country.’’10 Mainstream media were
extraordinarily concerned with a development of
masculine appearance and a potentially more aggressive and assertive sexuality in Army women, which
was thought to challenge male dominance. While
some were supportive of the WAAC, others urged
women not to join the corps. ‘‘Stay as feminine as
possible. Who wants to go out with an ersatz man?’’
warned a commentator.11 Women’s sexual agency
became a symbol for gender deviance, as became
clear in the stereotype of the ‘‘mannish woman’’
(Meyer, 1996, p. 6). The perceived masculinization
of women by the military posed the threat of feminization to the military as a whole.
Likewise, concerns about sexual deviance were
articulated in the media through the stereotypes of
the cross-dresser and camp follower, which in popular
usage was synonymous with ‘‘prostitute’’ and usually
implied a woman of ‘‘loose sexual morals’’.12 Accusations of promiscuity among Wacs in connection
with the segregated nature of the Women’s Corps
even led to the allegation that the WAC was a
prostitution cadre designed to fulfill the sexual needs
of male soldiers.13 Thus, during this slander campaign, the furnishing of birth control information and
contraceptives was taken as a ‘‘proof’’ by some
columnists that the Army indeed encouraged and
enticed heterosexual promiscuity, perhaps even specifically with servicemen (O’Donnell, 1943; Newsweek articles in 1943, cited in Meyer, 1996, p. 33).14
‘‘If my daughter is a member of an organized group of
whores’’, wrote one father of a Waac, ‘‘I want to know
it and get her out of the WAAC.’’15
Limited and transgressed by domestic and foreign
policy issues, these discourses created a fundamental
dilemma for the leaders of the women’s corps. In
order to protect them from sexual exploitation, discrimination and violence by the military, its members
had to be presented to the public and the military as
full-fledged soldiers with equal rights and a publicly
acceptable, i.e., feminine, image. To counter public
controversy, the WAC leadership presented the public
an image of the corps that resembled a boarding
school for white middle class daughters.16 Director
Hobby, who as a former newspaper publisher knew
how to employ the media in her public relations
efforts, emphasized an image of respectability and
countered the potential sexual autonomy of Wacs by a
display of asexuality. Sexual respectability was determined by race as well as class. Working class
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
women were stereotypically assumed to be more
sexually active than middle-class women, and African American women were portrayed as promiscuous by nature (Meyer, 1996, p. 36). Women’s
sexuality was policed by regulations such as the
higher enlistment requirements and the WAAC’s
separate Code of Conduct. According to these regulations, women who had transgressed the limits of
respectability in displaying a ‘‘conduct of a nature to
bring discredit upon the WAAC,’’ meaning public
drunkenness and extramarital sex or, in the case of
the WAAC, any form of sexual intercourse, were to
be discharged immediately. In contrast to the Army,
there was no room for rehabilitation by means of
punishment or disciplinary measures. When an attempt was made by the Surgeon General to introduce a venereal disease control program for Wacs
similar to that for male soldiers in the Army, it met
strong resistance by Director Hobby and the Director
of the Army Nurse Corps. Both believed in higher
moral standards for women and feared that even the
term venereal disease control would affect recruiting
adversely. Throughout the war, venereal disease was
a cause for rejection of women, although the Surgeon General argued that from a public health
standpoint it would be best to treat them, as was
done with men (Treadwell, 1954, pp. 615 – 616).
Civilian scientists of the National Research Council
advocated that all Waacs be educated in matters of
sexual health and that contraceptives be issued or
dispensed from slot machines in WAAC latrines
(Treadwell, 1954, p. 616). This approach was out
of the question for Director Hobby, who was convinced that because of the ‘‘high type of woman
expected in the Corps’’ (ibid.) no such measures
would be needed and that Army regulations
concerning these matters intended for male personnel
were not applicable to female personnel.17 This
policy reaffirmed the military’s sexual paradigm that
men were not to be held responsible for the consequences of their heterosexual encounters, as were
‘‘the others’’—their partners, who were assumed to
be civilians and females. The corps only contained
‘‘honorable’’ women, and honor in the case of the
WAC was defined as heterosexual orientation, white
middle-class background, modesty and chastity
(Meyer, 1996, p. 64; Peiss et al., 1989, pp. 4– 6).
A WAC pamphlet assured parents that ‘‘[your daugh-
17
ters will] make the kind of associations you want
them to have at home’’.18
‘‘Sodomists’’ and ‘‘cross-dressers’’
Before the peacetime mobilization of 1940– 1941,
homosexuality had never been an issue for the Army
or the Navy. Instead, they had targeted as criminal the
act of sodomy, defined as anal and sometimes oral sex
between men, not homosexual persons. The Articles
of War, Article 93, first codified ‘‘consensual sodomy’’ as a dischargeable offense in 1920. Samegender sexual relationships in the Armed Forces have
a long tradition in the United States Armed Forces.
General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who trained
the Continental Army at Valley Forge, is believed to
have had male lovers, and Lieutenant Gotthold Frederick Enslin was drummed out of the Continental
Army for sodomy on 11 March 1778. The military’s
first lesbian soldiers fought, disguised as men, in the
15th Missouri regiment during the Civil War (Chambers, 1999, p. 287). Thus soldiers and officers who
engaged in same sex relations were court-martialed,
usually imprisoned and dishonorably discharged on
the grounds of their behavior, not their sexual identity
per se.19 In World War II, a dramatic change occurred.
In October 1940, several million men had registered
for the draft and the Selective Service System was
now in a position to exclude certain groups of
citizens.20 The second reason for the fundamental
reorganization of the management of homosexuals
was the psychiatric profession’s growing authority to
define homosexuality and its influence on military
personnel policy. In 1942, the revised regulations for
the disposition of homosexual personnel reflected a
shift in the interpretation from a criminal offense to a
psychological illness. The varying policies of the
different services were at the end of WWII replaced
by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
Article 125 prohibited sodomy, defined as anal or oral
penetration, whether consensual or coerced and regardless of whether it occurred between heterosexual,
homosexual or married couples. For the first time,
assaults with the intent to commit sodomy, indecent
assault and indecent acts were also covered (Article
134 UCMJ; D’Amico, 1996, p. 6). Persons who
engaged in oral or anal same-gender sex were sub-
18
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
jected to court-martial and 5 years of incarceration,
while sodomy between heterosexual men and women
has rarely invited court-martial or incarceration. Military investigators detained suspects and forced them
to disclose their peers’ sexual orientation. Confessions
were not uncommonly extracted by threatening incarceration during interrogations. Prison sentences for
same-gender sodomy were common until the late
1980s.
The new policies allowed greater discretion, while
at the same time vastly expanding the military’s
administrative apparatus for disposing of homosexual
personnel that relied on hospitalization, diagnosis,
surveillance, interrogation, discharge, courts-martial
and mass indoctrination (Bérubé, 1990).
Bérubé (1990) and others have concluded that the
fact that sodomy laws were rarely applied to lesbians
was due to a ‘‘history of invisibility’’ of lesbians in
general and in the military. While the remnants of
the Victorian ideal of ‘‘passionlessness’’ might account for part of this invisibility, I suggest that the
emergence of a lesbian subculture in the WAC as
well as the administrative apparatus to manage
lesbianism in the corps have to be examined also
against the background of performativity: discursive
categories for lesbianism in the 1940s were not
sodomy but gender disguise and cross-dressing.21
Within the WAC, the management of homosexuality
was based on educational rather than on military
traditions: educational lectures, guidance, supervision, reassignment of personnel; criminal prosecution, courts-martial and discharge only as last resorts
against the most overt, disruptive and ‘‘unreformable’’ homosexuals (Bérubé, 1990, p. 46).22 Many
WAC officers had been recruited from women’s
colleges for their administrative experience and as
a reassurance to parents and the public. Their in loco
parentis approach addressed lesbianism primarily as
an environmental problem due to ‘‘conditions of
group living unnatural to the majority of mature
women.’’ Lesbian relationships were considered inappropriate ‘‘crushes’’ that should be countered by
giving trainees ‘‘opportunities of wholesome and
natural companionship with men’’, creating living
conditions more ‘‘unfavorable to the development of
homosexuality’’ and minimizing curiosity by avoiding ‘‘as much as possible any talk regarding homosexuality.’’23
The psychological redefinition went as far as
instructing officers that ‘‘every person is born with a
bisexual nature’’ and that ‘‘every woman possesses
some traits that are usually regarded as masculine.’’
Any Wac could ‘‘gravitate’’ toward homosexual practices and ‘‘turn to homosexual relationship [sic] as a
means to satisfy [. . .] the universal desire for affection’’ (ibid., pp. 24 –29; Bérubé, 1990, p. 46; Treadwell, 1954, pp. 616 – 17, 625). Interestingly,
homosexual tendencies in women could be channeled
into qualities that made them better soldiers. Psychiatrists sought to apply their concepts of transference
and sublimation to the women soldiers. Trainees who
had ‘‘potential homosexual tendencies’’, they advised,
could be ‘‘deterred from active participation’’ in
sexual relations and should be encouraged to sublimate their desires into a ‘‘hero-worship’’ type of
reaction or into ‘‘a definite type of leadership’’ (ibid.).
This attempt to desexualize women’s relationships by
redirecting their sexual energy to military purposes
stood in stark contrast to the military’s traditional and
official position that (male) homosexuality threatened
morale and discipline and was incompatible with
military service. While effeminate men challenged
the very core of military masculinity, lesbians, as
women, were already excluded from this core. Thus,
their sexuality, when sublimated or properly channeled, could be put to service to slot them into the
military structure of rank and command.
A hangover from adolescence?
Three physicians and psychiatrists have had an
enormous influence on the perception of homosexuality in the medical and psychiatric community.
When in World War II psychiatrists greatly expanded
their authority in the armed forces, their reforms,
which dramatically altered the way military leaders
dealt with homosexual personnel, were based on the
theories of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Havelock
Ellis, and Sigmund Freud. Richard von KrafftEbing’s Psychopathia Sexualis, first published in
1886 and revised many times, had an enormous
impact on the scientific study of homosexuality as
a mental illness that would remain the dominant
paradigm for the following decades. In hundreds of
case histories, Krafft-Ebing (1965) discussed varied
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
‘‘perversions,’’ such as sadism and masochism as
well as ‘‘antipathic sexual instinct,’’ his term for
congenital homosexuality in the earlier editions (cited in Greenberg, 1988, p. 414). Although he endorsed the repeal of Paragraph 175 in the German
criminal code and called for tolerance towards homosexuals, Krafft-Ebing (1965) insisted on homosexuality, like ‘‘alcoholism,’’ ‘‘insanity,’’ and ‘‘idiocy,’’
being manifestations of hereditary degeneration
(Mondimore, 1996, p. 37). Homosexuality was
closely associated with cross-dressing: ‘‘[F]eeling,
thought, will, and the whole character [. . .] correspond with the peculiar sexual instinct, but not with
the sex which the individual represents anatomically
and physiologically’’ (ibid.). As to the question of
whether homosexuality was inherited or acquired,
Krafft-Ebing (1965) suggested that it was not homosexuality, but degeneracy, ‘‘neuroses, psychoses, degenerative signs, etc. that have been found in the
families’’ (ibid.). Thus, homosexuality could be
caused by masturbation: ‘‘Perverse sexuality is developed under the influence of neurasthenia induced
by masturbation.’’ (Krafft-Ebing, 1965, p. 190).
Havelock Ellis, a British physician, dismissed the
theory of homosexuality resulting from hereditary
degeneration as well as Krafft-Ebing’s idea that it
could be induced by masturbation. Ellis believed that
most cases of sexual inversion were inborn and
involved an anomaly of gender, an incomplete differentiation that was not in itself pathological. He acknowledged that some cases of inversion might be
acquired but thought them rare and involving a
congenital predisposition. According to his theory,
developmental factors led to a ‘‘modification of the
organism [so] that it becomes more adapted than the
normal or average organism to experience sexual
attraction to the same sex.’’ (Ellis & Symonds,
1897, pp. 132, 134). He advocated abolishing criminal
statutes punishing homosexuality and was opposed to
‘‘treatments’’. While he thought it impossible to
‘‘cure’’ homosexuality, he believed in and advocated
coeducation in order to prevent ‘‘schoolboy homosexuality’’ (Mondimore, 1996, p. 51). Anticipating
Freud’s theory, Ellis believed that tendencies of homosexuality appeared before puberty but questioned
the idea that it is ever entirely acquired: ‘‘The seed of
suggestion can only develop when it falls on a suitable
soil’’ (Ellis & Symonds, 1897, p. 110).
19
Most important for WAC psychiatrists was Ellis’s
hypothesis that ‘‘the principal character of the
sexually inverted women is a certain degree of
masculinity’’ (Greenberg, 1988, p. 381). Gender
stereotypes could define homosexuality even in the
absence of romantic or erotic relations or desires.
Browne (1923), a student of Havelock Ellis’s,
described the case of a woman she called homosexual because she had ‘‘a decided turn for carpentry, mechanics and executive manual work. Not tall;
slim, boyish figure; very hard, strong muscles,
singularly impassive face, with big magnetic eyes.
The dominating tendency is very strong here’’ (cited
in Greenberg, 1988, p. 382). While masculinity
posed a social or sexual threat to males, ‘‘the
passive agent’’ in a lesbian relationship was sometimes denied a sexuality altogether. Havelock Ellis
called them ‘‘pseudohomosexuals’’ and Hamilton
(1896) described them as ‘‘decidedly feminine, with
little power of resistance, usually sentimental or
unnecessarily prudish. . .[T]he weak victim can be
made the tool of the designing companion’’ (cited
in Greenberg, 1988, p. 382).
A dramatic departure from the somatic roots in
most nineteenth century physicians’ explanations of
homosexuality came with the Viennese psychiatrist
Sigmund Freud, who explained homosexuality in
purely psychological terms. Building on Ernst
Haeckel’s proposal that the individual’s development
(ontogeny) retraces the evolution of the species
(phylogeny), Freud concluded that homosexuality
was a developmental disorder. In his model, the
newborn infant is assumed to be ‘‘polymorphously
perverse’’ or ‘‘ambisexual’’. In subsequent development, the sexual drive is invested first in the mouth,
then in the anus and finally in the genitals, each stage
involving the choice of a new sexual object: first the
self, then the mother, the father, and ultimately
someone of the opposite sex. Hence, homosexuality
is an element of everyone’s psychological history and
never fully eradicated as the heterosexual adult
preserves elements of homosexual attraction in the
form of same-sex friendship (Freud, 1953, pp. 125 –
243). If this maturation process is disturbed, an
individual can become fixated at one of the intermediate stages and regress to it later as the result of a
traumatic event, such as the Oedipus complex (Freud,
1958, pp. 59 – 79).
20
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
Freud also introduced the notion of ‘‘latent homosexuality’’; impulses that remain repressed so that
they never come to consciousness but continue to
exercise an influence on the individual’s mental
processes. If heterosexuality is just as much a
product of family interaction as homosexuality, the
latter can no longer be seen as pathological. Indeed,
Freud told a newspaper in 1905 that ‘‘homosexuals
must not be treated as sick people, for a perverse
orientation is far from being a sickness’’ (Greenberg,
1988, p. 426). Although the evaluation of homosexuality as an immature sexuality was implicitly pejorative, he vigorously opposed the persecution of
homosexuality in criminal courts, which to him
was an ‘‘extreme violation of human rights’’ (Greenberg, 1988, p. 426).
The psychiatric profession had been promoting
psychiatric as well as physical screening with the
Selective Service System since the summer of 1940
when Congress had authorized the expanded defense
budgets and passed the Selective Training and Service Act. Psychiatrists, most notably Harry Stack
Sullivan, Winfred Overholser and Harry A. Steckel,
were eager to show the War Department how
psychiatry could contribute to the war effort.24
One of the lessons from the First World War
(WWI) was the necessity for the armed forces to
reduce the number of returning soldiers who had
displayed symptoms that came to be subsumed
under the term ‘‘shell shock’’ (also called ‘‘war
neurosis’’, ‘‘battle fatigue’’ in WWII and now recognized as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or
PTSD). By 1942, WWI shell shock cases accounted
for 58% of all Veterans’ Administration’s patients
(Feudtner, 1993; Leed, 1979; Salmon, 1917; Showalter, 1997). These psychiatric casualties had cost the
federal government over US$1 billion. Screening, the
psychiatrists argued, could greatly reduce these costs
by weeding out potential psychiatric cases before they
became military responsibilities (Menninger, 1948, p.
267). Despite the fact that Sullivan’s (1945) initial plan
for psychiatric screening contained no references to
homosexuality, the military bureaucracy did not follow
his belief that ‘‘sexual aberrations’’ played only a
minimal role in causing mental disorders. The massive
mobilization was expected to include ‘‘many homosexual persons’’ and it became clear that the military
would no longer be able to handle its homosexual
discipline problems by charging offenders with sodomy and sending them to prison. By mid-1941, an
administrative apparatus for screening inductees at
local draft boards was in place to eliminate those
‘‘neuropsychiatrically unfit’’ or those with ‘‘psychopathic personality disorders,’’ including homosexuals
(Bérubé, 1990, p. 12).
After Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall
had warned commanding officers in November
1942 that the increasing number of courts-martial
was unacceptable and indicated a lack of leadership
and enforcement of discipline, officials from the
Judge Advocate General’s Office relaxed their
hard-line position. They considered alternative
approaches to ‘‘the sodomist problem’’ that did
not require courts-martial in all cases.25 An alliance
of reform-minded military officials and psychiatrists
proposed what they described as a more ‘‘enlightened’’ and efficient system for handling homosexual
offenders. To prevent additional strain on the already overburdened military prisons, the new system provided for the discharge without trial of
certain homosexual personnel, while allowing the
retention of those whose services were deemed
essential. Slowly, the clinical term homosexual began to replace the legal term sodomist as jurisdiction over homosexuals was transferred from the
criminal justice system to an expanded system of
hospitalization, diagnosis and discharge.
The psychiatric consultants started implementing
their theories by educating administrative officials on
their developmental model of human sexuality based
on Freudian psychoanalysis. They described the normal development as one passing through the homosexual stage and then on to heterosexual maturity. All
individuals retained a ‘‘homosexual residual’’ as a
component of their sexuality that when ‘‘adequately
sublimated’’ became the ‘‘foundation of social solidarity’’. Some people never reached that stage and
remained homosexuals. But even ‘‘normal individuals’’, when placed under unusual circumstances such as
prison or the military might ‘‘revert’’ to their homosexual stage of development and engage in homosexual
practices. Three psychosexual categories emerged
from this developmental model: the mature ‘normal’
heterosexual, the immature ‘deviant’ homosexual,
sometimes referred to as a ‘‘true’’ or ‘‘confirmed’’
homosexual, and the regressive homosexual who
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
‘‘reverts’’ to homosexuality due to environmental factors. Because ‘‘true’’ homosexuals could not be cured,
there was no need to imprison them (Bérubé, 1990, pp.
136 – 137; Greenberg, 1988, pp. 421 – 430; Meyer,
1996, pp. 150, 153; Mondimore, 1996, pp. 69 –77).
Three administrative categories were developed to
dispose of homosexual personnel that corresponded
with the psychiatrists’ psychosexual categories as
follows. The ‘‘true pervert’’ who had sex with consenting adults was to be administratively discharged
as mentally ill. The criminal ‘‘sodomist’’ category was
narrowed to include only those offenders, whether
they were regressive heterosexuals or homosexuals,
who raped or had sex with minors. The third category,
who were not ‘‘by nature homosexuals’’ but ‘‘submit[ted] to practice’’ through ‘‘intoxication or curiosity’’ were to be ‘‘rehabilitated and retained in the
service’’ without trial or discharge.26
In January 1943, the new policy was in place.
Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson issued a new
Army directive, conservatively titled ‘‘Sodomists’’,
that codified the new compromise between the
reformers and the hard-liners. It stated that sodomy
was a serious crime and that all offenders should be
tried by court-martial. However, exceptions were
applicable to the ‘‘confirmed pervert’’ who did not
use force or violence to be examined by a board of
officers and discharged under the provision of
Section Eight of Army Regulation 615 –360. This
category of undesirable discharge, often nicknamed
‘‘blue discharges’’ or ‘‘section eights,’’ which permitted the discharge of personnel with ‘‘undesirable
habits or traits of character’’ had to be broadened to
include those whom psychiatrists now defined as
‘‘sexual psychopaths’’. The other exception was the
soldier who engaged in homosexual activity but was
not a ‘‘confirmed pervert’’. He or she was to be
examined by a psychiatrist and if the individual
‘‘otherwise possesses a salvage value,’’ he or she
could be disciplined and returned to duty by an
officer exercising general court-martial jurisdiction.27 It was not necessarily expensive training or
special skills that constituted the ‘‘salvage value’’ of
a soldier. Rather, the Army’s need for personnel had
never been more urgent during the war than in
1943. WAC recruiting suffered from the conversion
as well as from bad publicity during the slander
campaign. The Adjutant General estimated that
21
2,000,000 more men had to be drafted within the
next year and that more than 600,000 of the jobs
could more efficiently be done by Wacs, thus
preventing the controversial drafting of fathers of
families.28
The new procedure was finalized in January 1944
when the War Department issued WD Circular No. 3,
a revision of the 1943 policy that was followed by
similar directives for the Navy and would remain in
effect for the rest of the war.29 Suspected homosexuals, which for the first time included ‘‘latent homosexuals’’ who were reported or declared themselves
without having committed any offence, were placed
on sick call or sent to sick bay to be hospitalized. He
or she was interviewed by a psychiatrist to determine
the diagnostic and administrative category; medical
staff then observed his or her behavior, compiled a life
history and contacted the family. Intelligence officers
frequently interrogated suspects to obtain the names
of other homosexual personnel. An administrative
board of commissioned officers that was required
whenever possible to include a psychiatrist finally
determined whether the patient remained in the hospital, returned to duty, or would be discharged or
forced to resign as an officer. Enlisted personnel was
subject to the decision of the board without benefit of
counsel and with neither the right to present or crossexamine witnesses nor to obtain a copy of the proceedings (Bérubé, 1990, p. 143). Although the new
discharge system saved some men from prison, it
vastly expanded the military’s antihomosexual apparatus, creating new forms of surveillance and punishment. Gay men and women would now be regarded
with suspicion and could be punished even if they
were sexually abstinent. If military officials determined that they belonged to a class of people that
were deemed ‘‘undesirable,’’ they would be subject to
the decision of an administrative board of officers,
psychiatrists and medical officers. They were not
granted the benefit of counsel or the right to be
present, cross-examine witnesses or obtain a copy of
the proceedings—rights to which they would have
been entitled had they been defendants formally
charged with a criminal act (Bérubé, 1990, pp. 143 –
144; Rimmerman, 1996, pp. 5 –6).
Based on these guidelines, formulating a policy on
lesbian relationships in the corps proved difficult for
WAC officers and their medical staff. Due to the
22
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
pressure to fill personnel quotas and the absence of
specific criteria, until 1945 most women were accepted into the Army ‘‘without even a semblance of a
psychiatric exam’’, as William Menniger, the Army’s
chief psychiatric consultant, complained (Menninger,
1948, p. 112). However, Oveta Culp Hobby and
WAAC personnel officers began lobbying for more
thorough screening procedures of applicants as early
as November 1942. The adjutant general then issued a
confidential letter to all commands ordering recruiters
to look into ‘‘the applicants’ local reputation’’ and to
consider ‘‘homosexual tendencies’’ among nine categories of ‘‘undesirable habits and traits of character’’
when interviewing applicants.30
In May 1943, responding to Hobby’s pressure, the
Surgeon General appointed Major Margaret D. Craighill as his first consultant for Women’s Health and
Welfare. In late September 1943, Major Craighill
succeeded in convincing the War Department to order
gynecological and psychiatric examinations for every
applicant to the WAC and to establish standards of
acceptance and disqualification specifically for women (Treadwell, 1954, p. 602). Policies aimed at identifying and rejecting lesbian applicants to the corps
were gradually developed over the course of the war.
This screening process of black as well as white
women was based on class, education, behavior and
family background. Recruiters selecting women for
officer training were advised to look out for candidates with ‘‘rough or coarse’’ manners, ‘‘stocky or
shapeless’’ build and ‘‘masculine’’ demeanor or
‘‘voice type’’ (Meyer, 1996, p. 156). ‘‘Emotional
demonstrativeness’’ according to the WAC’s official
historian Mattie Treadwell, ‘‘was an accepted trait
among women, who thought nothing of kissing or
embracing female friends or walking arm-in-arm with
them.’’ (Treadwell, 1954, p. 625). But the authorities
knew what to look out for: ‘‘There is always one who
acts, walks, and pays attention to the other, the same
as a devoted male’’ reported the assistant chief of the
military police at Fort Oglethorpe, ‘‘for instance, a girl
spills a little bit of water on her skirt, and the other is
patting her knees, and so forth; lighting her cigarette,
[. . .] just acting like a man.’’31
‘‘Straightforward, scientific education’’ such as the
sex hygiene courses implemented by Major Craighill
was designed to instruct officers in the proper ways of
handling cases of venereal disease, pregnancy and
homosexuality under their command.32 Officers were
advised to deal with these cases with ‘‘fairness and
tolerance,’’ not because of the Army’s tolerant attitude
toward women’s sexuality but because of concerns
with the image of the corps. In the WAC where
personnel shortages were pressing and where officials
were acutely aware of the detrimental effects of
‘‘smear campaigns’’, officers were warned not to
‘‘indulge’’ in ‘‘witch hunting or speculating’’ and
threatened with punishment if they did.33 WAC corporal ‘‘Johnnie’’ Phelps found: ‘‘[T]here was a tolerance for lesbianism if they needed you. [. . .] If you
had specialist kind of job [to do] or if you were in a
theatre of operations [. . .] were bodies were needed,
they tolerated anything, just about’’ (Bérubé, 1990, p.
180).34 WAC officials believed that rumor spreading
and false accusations were more serious threats to the
Corps than were lesbian relationships (Craighill,
1947, p. 228; Menninger, 1948, p. 106; Treadwell,
1954, p. 625). WAC psychiatrist Captain Alice E.
Rost, one of the Army’s sixteen female psychiatrists,
adhered to a liberal position based on the Freudian
developmental model and, accordingly, considered
lesbian sexuality a ‘‘hangover from adolescence’’,
caused by factors in the ‘‘home [which] does not
permit such normal development’’ so that the woman
‘‘remain[s] arrested at an immature level.’’35 Her task
was to assess according to the new psychosexual and
administrative categories whether an individual before
the Board of Inquiry had been involved in ‘‘accidental’’ homosexual relationships and thus could be
rehabilitated through psychiatric treatment or whether
she was a ‘‘true homosexual or addict’’ and should be
discharged.36
How would these categories be determined and
distinguished in the WAC? The ‘‘hierarchy of perversions’’ as Leisa Meyer has termed it, was organized along class as well as cultural and racial
divisions. As the varying degrees to which fraternization policies were enforced in different theaters of
the war indicate, the Army often encouraged intraracial heterosexual relationships and sometimes tolerated homosexual relationships when the alternative
was thought to be interracial heterosexual relationships. For WAC officials however, intraracial lesbian
relationships constituted a greater threat to the legitimacy of the corps than intraracial heterosexual
involvement with servicemen (Meyer, 1996, pp.
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
162 –163). In targeting women’s sexual agency, the
Army focused on masculine women, who had been
visible and identifiable as sexual agents even before
the war. In the civilian as well as the military world,
butch/girlfriend dyadic couples, consisting of a
‘‘dyke’’, ‘‘lesbian’’ or ‘‘butch’’ courting her ‘‘lady’’,
‘‘girl’’ or ‘‘girlfriend’’ were a way especially for
working class lesbians to affirm their autonomy by
‘‘creating a romantic and sexual unit within which
women were not under male control [. . .], a prepolitical form of resistance’’ (Kennedy & Davis, 1993,
p. 6). Lesbian slang was widespread even among
women who did not have sexual relationships with
other women. At the same time, there was the
continuing tradition of ‘‘romantic friendships’’ and
‘‘Boston marriages’’ among middle-class and upperclass women that deemphasized visible erotic and
sexual components (Rupp, 1990, p. 398).
Although common psychiatric wisdom was
changing, many medical specialists such as the
WAC psychiatrist Major Albert Preston still adhered
to the theory of gender inversion being one of the
major criteria to identify lesbians.37 Cross-gender
behavior, such as the desire to enter the WAC
itself, and/or adoption of male dress was linked to
what was called ‘‘sexual confusion’’, the rejection
of femininity and heterosexuality (Meyer, 1996, pp.
153 –155). The classification of ‘‘masculine’’ women as the most threatening to contemporary standards of white, middle-class sexual morality was
again based on older theoretical frameworks, namely, the degeneration theory taught by Havelock Ellis
who had developed a continuum, marking female
‘‘romantic friendships’’ as the least degenerative
form of homosexuality (Meyer, 1996, p. 151).
‘‘The masculine woman was the homosexual. [. . .]
Butch and fem identities were significantly different
during the 1940s. Butch identity was deeply felt
internally, something that marked the person as
different, while fem identity was rooted in socializing with and having relationships with gays. Fems
did not experience themselves as basically different
from heterosexual women except to the extent that
they were part of gay life’’ (Kennedy & Davis,
1993, pp. 324, 326).
Because the WAC regulatory system was based
primarily on the attempt to protect public legitimacy
of the corps and thus targeted women’s sexual agency
23
as such, the ‘‘mannish’’ lesbian, who was by definition a sexual agent, came to embody the ‘‘undesirable
habits and traits of character.’’38
The association of ‘‘mannishness’’ with homosexuality in women was not only imposed upon them
but also embraced and recreated by lesbian members
of the WAC in order to establish and make visible
their sexual identity to others in the corps. Within
this framework, butch or ‘‘mannish’’ women, particularly when engaged in butch/girlfriend dyadic relationships, became the most visible and targeted
victims of hostility, accusations and sanctions such
as discharge while often forming the nucleus of
emerging lesbian communities within the corps
(Meyer, 1996, p. 151).39
Besides education, ethnic and class background,
and appearance, it was also the type of sexual
activity that determined whether a woman could be
characterized as a victim of seduction or ‘‘an addict
of such practices.’’40 While kissing and embracing
could be tolerated, it was ‘‘oral practices’’ that
marked the ‘‘true pervert.’’41 If no other offenses
were present, the typical procedure was a ‘‘psychiatric’’ or ‘‘Section VIII’’ discharge, which eliminated
the danger of adverse publicity that could have been
the result of an extensive purge of lesbians at the
training center.
In the course of the Fort Oglethorpe investigation,
witnesses were coerced into identifying other lesbians
who by the time of the hearings were already stationed
at other posts across the nation. Colonel Hobby
followed the advice of the Board of Inquiry and
directed the WAC staff directors in each service
command to ‘‘quietly inquire’’ into the ‘‘present
conduct’’ of the individuals a list of whose names
she provided them.42 As Bérubé (1990) has argued,
the procedures developed by the WAC administration
for identifying and eliminating ‘‘suspected’’ lesbians
during the war were used extensively after the war,
when personnel needs were no longer as pressing as
before.
The investigation at Fort Oglethorpe in 1944
Lesbians’ agency was exercised in a wide range of
responses to the Army’s investigations from denial to
accusing others to self-indictment to protect their
24
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
partner, as is apparent from the investigation at Fort
Oglethorpe, 1944.
In May 1944, Mrs. Josephine Churchill from
Westby, Wisconsin, wrote a letter to the Judge Advocate General:
I am writing to you to inform you of some of the
things at Ft. Oglethorpe that are a disgrace to the
U.S. Army. It is no wonder women are afraid to
enlist. It is full of homosexuals and sex
maniacs.43
When her daughter, 20-year-old Private Virginia
Churchill was home on furlough ‘‘she received
some of the most shocking letters I have ever read
in my life from a woman of thirty yrs. [sic]’’ The
Sergeant who wrote those letters had ‘‘ruined other
girls and will continue to use her spell over other
innocent girls who join up with the W.A.C., because
of their patriotic spirit’’. Mrs. Churchill went on to
name not only Sergeant Mildred Loos but also
‘‘many others who are practicing this terrible vice,’’
Her daughter, however, had ‘‘repented and says she
will never make friends with another strange girl
again.’’
The Deputy Inspector General immediately ordered an investigation. A number of letters of the
two women was secured as evidence and the investigating officer’s report speaks of ‘‘professions of
passionate love, of jealousy, of longings for each
other and suggestive references.’’ Apart from passionate love, the letters also testify to that the
women knew what to expect from the military
institution: ‘‘I can’t stand Oglethorpe anymore without you. [. . .] Oh! God if you don’t come to me
soon so help me, this Damn Army is going to look
for Loos and when they find her, she will be in
Virginia’s arms somewhere.’’44
In their testimonies, both women chose to deny
‘‘having engaged in homosexual practices’’ and
downplayed their role in the relationship. ‘‘All those
letters, of course, are fictitious,’’ as Private Churchill
testified. Sergeant Loos testified that although she
‘‘used to let [all of] the girls go up in my room’’,
Private Churchill ‘‘made it a habit of coming up to my
room’’ and that she frequently found her in her bed
late at night and would have to chase her out. Private
Churchill ‘‘tagged around me like a little dog’’ and
‘‘acted like a sick pup’’. The letters she wrote to
Churchill were ‘‘written in an attempt to discourage
her’’, as her father had advised her to ‘‘give her her
way and play her game’’.
Private Churchill in turn testified that she liked
Sergeant Loos, but that it had been the Sergeant who
had made the initial pass at her. She had felt sorry for
the ‘‘rather grim aspects of her life history’’ but it was
Loos who approached her in her bunk with ‘‘actions
that were anything but discreet.’’ On the letters she
had written, she commented: ‘‘I feared this girl and
very often said things to her and wrote things to her
to calm her down, and I used to think if I could just
make her wait, until I could get out of her reach
[. . .].’’ The ‘‘kisses to Rosemary’’, according to
Churchill’s testimony, referred to ‘‘things that she
herself did. I had no part in them. I mean, I didn’t
return those things.’’45
Captain Alice Rost, who conducted a neuropsychiatric examination and testified before the Board,
found that both had indeed engaged in ‘‘a homosexual
love affair’’, that ‘‘physically Sergeant Loos [was]
normal’’. The psychiatrist then testified that ‘‘Sergeant
Loos does not present a medical problem such as is
involved when a case is presented involving women
who are real perverts, those who engage in oral
practices with other women; persons in the latter
category being definitely abnormal. [. . .] This particular girl has high moral ideals.’’ ‘‘It is entirely
possible that she will never engage in any other
homosexual practice.’’46
The psychiatrist managed to draw the Board away
from the language of religious sin that Mrs. Churchill
used when she spoke of the ‘‘terrible vice’’ that ‘‘ruins
innocent girls’’ unless they ‘‘repent.’’ Instead, Captain
Rost employs military and medical discourses when
she states that Loos’s ‘‘usefulness as a member of the
WAC’’ could be restored by psychiatric treatment, that
not only she ‘‘has been a very good soldier’’ but one
with particularly ‘‘high moral ideas.’’ The report
concludes accordingly: ‘‘Clearly the language and
references in the letters are vulgar and obscene.
However, it should be noted that under all the facts
and circumstances developed by this investigation,
questions are raised as to the extent to which the
letters furnish evidence that in fact they engaged in
homosexual practices. In part, the language used is
considered to be expression of grotesque and fanciful
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
imagination. The fact [. . .] that Sergeant Loos does
not have dual sex organs demonstrates that the references [. . .] are only fanciful. However, it is considered
that the letters do furnish strong evidence in support of
the allegation that they did engage in homosexual
embraces.’’ This example illustrates the desexualization of lesbian relationships. Lesbian sexuality in the
eyes of the psychiatrist was either modeled after male
sexuality or not physically possible and merely a
product of ‘‘fanciful imagination’’.
The second example shows a different response to
the charges. Although the women in both cases were
victims of the military’s systemic homophobia, they
exercised agency in a variety of ways and managed to
negotiate a range of lesbian identities. Thirty-one
years old Lieutenant Patricia Warren had been practicing law for 8 years and had been married and
divorced before she became Company Commander
at Fort Oglethorpe. When Corporal Ruth Kellog was
made Platoon Sergeant of her Company, the two
became acquainted and soon developed an intimate
friendship. Kellog was at the time 36 years of age and
unhappily married. She confided to her friend and
commanding officers her worries about her brother, a
Japanese prisoner. The two women appeared to have
truly found each other and seemed to have made no
attempts to hide their intimacy from others. Witnesses
testified the two ‘‘always paired off at social gatherings and were constantly together’’. Occasionally,
they managed to spend a few days of furlough with
each other. Of the ‘‘voluminous correspondence’’
between the two women, the Board obtained two
letters, both of which were ‘‘full of love impressions
and denote longings’’:47
Kelly, I love you. I love you so much that I get
mad at myself for not being able to find words to
express what I am feeling—God, sweetheart, I
never would have believed that people could feel
what you and I feel for each other. Even though
we live the rest of our lives together I will never
be able to show you or tell you how very much
you mean to me.’’48
When Corporal Kellog was told by the investigating officers of the ‘‘allegations that indicated an
abnormal relationship between her and Lieutenant
Warren’’ she answered, ‘‘I admit them, sir.’’49 In her
25
testimony, Kellog stated that ‘‘she and Lieut. Warren
love each other and enjoy each other’s company more
than that of men.’’ The night before Kellog was due
to testify for the second time, she and Lieutenant
Warren met in Chattanooga, TN, some 14 miles from
Fort Oglethorpe. On the next morning, the officer
voluntarily appeared before the Investigation Board.
When asked whether she cared to make any statement
regarding the charge that ‘‘she had engaged in an
abnormal love affair, such as would normally be
expected to occur between a man and a woman,
and that she had promiscuously associated with an
enlisted woman,’’ she answered: ‘‘About the only
thing I want to do is take all the blame for [sic]
and clear the kid.’’50 She denied none of ‘‘the
implications of the language used in the two letters’’
and stated ‘‘It would be utterly impossible to deny it,
sir, and as far as I know, I do not think even doctors
can explain.’’51
Here Warren invoked the psychiatric discourse
herself, suggesting that it was she, the commanding
officer, who ‘‘seduced’’ the ‘‘kid’’. She knew that the
enlisted woman’s best chance not to be dishonorably
discharged was if the Board reached the conclusion
that Kellog was a ‘‘first-time offender’’. Thus she
concluded her appearance (and ended her career in the
Army) by convincing the Board that ‘‘this was an
initial experience for Cpl. Kellog.’’
Second Lieutenant Patricia L. Warren was ‘‘offered
the opportunity to resign for the good of the Service.’’52 Private Virginia Churchill, Sergeant Mildred
Loos and Corporal Ruth Kellog were ordered ‘‘to be
hospitalized for psychiatric treatment [. . .] with a view
to being either restored to duty or separated from the
service, depending upon the results of such treatment.’’ The fact that the issue of fraternization that
would otherwise have inevitably played a role where a
Commanding Officer and a Platoon Sergeant were
involved was totally absent in the inquiries of the
Board, makes it clear that female sexuality carried a
very different set of meanings than did male sexuality
in the armed forces.
Conclusion
The two examples show that women’s gender and
sexual identity, agency and experience in World War
26
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
II were shaped by a complex dispositif of discourses,
practices, laws, regulations and truths. Women’s sexuality was controlled by discourses of desexualization
and/or hypersexualization, by fear of their sexual
agency and fear of their victimization. While the
WAAC leadership created an image of the ‘‘respectable’’ female soldier for white, heterosexual middleclass women, their sexuality was contained by policies premised on a double standard.
This left lesbian soldiers doubly othered, as lesbianism in the Corps was the epitome of cultural
anxieties over women’s entrance into the military.
Because it was women’s sexual agency that was
most threatening to existing gender norms, the most
visibly sexual and stereotypically working class
‘‘butch’’ lesbian was targeted far more strongly than
the stereotypically white middle-class lesbian who
was part of a ‘‘romantic friendship’’ among women.
Nevertheless, over the course of the war, women
soldiers gradually but decidedly expanded their presence in the military and moved from serving as
nurses and clerks to serving as aviation mechanics,
weapon instructors and air traffic controllers, deploying to all arenas of the war. Entrance into the WAC
provided the opportunity to explore their sexual
identity and to socialize with women in a way that
would hardly have been possible in civilian society
during the 1940s. Regardless of whether the WAC
was indeed ‘‘the quintessential lesbian institution’’ as
D’Emilio (1983, p. 27) has called it, or what their
actual numbers were, lesbian soldiers certainly explored new strategies, established networks and
formed communities inside the military as well as
in many major cities where a by now established bar
culture provided some safety and support in public
(D’Emilio, 1983; D’Emilio & Freedman, 1988, pp.
288 – 295; Kennedy & Davis, 1993, pp. 38 – 54).
Many lesbians who had received ‘‘blue’’ discharges
returned to port cities where they formed the nuclei
of emerging gay communities.
Lesbian and heterosexual women’s experiences in
the WAC highlight the conflicting meanings of
women’s sexualities and call for further research that
places them in the context of the performative and
discursive construction of the woman soldier during
and after World War II. Over 50 years after women
became part of the armed forces, the following
statement uttered by a drill sergeant may illustrate
the ongoing relevance of such research: ‘‘Welcome
to the fleet. In the Navy’s eyes, you’re either dykes
or whores—get used to it.’’53
Endnotes
1
Congressional Record, 77th Congress, 1st Sess. (March 17,
1941), 88, pt 55:2682. File: Congressional Record, Box 217,
Series 55, Record Group 165, National Archives and Records
Administration.
2
Foucault’s (1994, p. 299) concept of the dispositif is
particularly useful in this context because it refers not only to the
elements of an apparatus of power, but primarily to the complex
relations between them. ‘‘Un ensemble résolument hétérogène,
comportant des discours, des institutions, des aménagements
architecturaux, des décisions réglementaires, des lois, des mesures
administratives, des énoncés scientifiques, des propositions philosophiques, morales, philanthropiques, bref: du dit, aussi bien que du
non-dit. Le dispositif lui-même, c’est le réseau qu’on peut établir
entre ces éléments.’’
3
The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was created
on May 15, 1942 and replaced by the Women’s Army Corps (WAC)
on July 1, 1943.
4
I use the capitalized abbreviations for the organizations while
the terms ‘Waac’ and ‘Wac’ refer to members of the respective
women’s corps.
5
Barrett (1999) shows how male officers of the US Navy
produce an ideal masculinity through various discourses of
difference and normality that serve to differentiate this ideal from
other concepts of masculinity (e.g., homosexual) and femininity.
Because none of these categories is static, masculinity has to be
produced and maintained by drill, a ‘‘culture of tests’’, permanent
surveillance and a differentiated system of awards.
6
Public Law 77-554, subsequently quoted as PL.
7
Despite providing Army status the bill proved a mixed
blessing to Wacs: The corps was to exist only for the duration plus 6
months; it was limited to women aged 20 – 50 years; ranks were
limited to that of colonel for the commanding officer and lieutenant
colonel for all other officers; WAC officers were never to command
any men unless specifically ordered to do so and black officers
could not command white Wacs, although white officers were to
command black enlisted women when no black officers were
available (HR Report 595, 78th Congress, 1st session, 24 June
1943, sub: Establishing a WAC for Service in the Army of the
United States, Report to accompany S 495, SPWA 314.7 (1-7-43)(1)
sec1.
8
For the self-mobilization of women see the following
documents, all of which are reprinted in Litoff and Smith (1997).
Banning (1942, pp. 3 – 10), a well-known writer, urged women to
contribute their share in the total war against fascism. Flynn (1941,
pp. 11 – 23), who played an active role in the American Communist
Party during the 1940s, emphasized that the war could not be won
without women substituting male soldiers in the civil labor force,
defense industries and ‘‘as trained auxiliaries to the armed forces’’.
In 1941, the National Council of Negro Women, during a
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
convention of 43 national African – American women’s organizations at Howard University in Washington, DC, issued a call for a
conference to discuss ‘‘ways and means of improving the social,
economic, and political status of the Negro woman through her
participation in the program of national defense.’’ (Sawyer, 1943,
pp. 24 – 34). Likewise, the ‘‘Double V’’ campaign, adopted by the
Black press in March 1942, called for victory over both
totalitarianism abroad and racism at home.
9
A total of 16.34 million men and women served during WWII
(U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1989, 1140).
10
US Senate, Committee on Military Affairs, Hearings on
Manpower, March 25, 1943, 88 – 91, Ibid.
11
File: Clippings, Box 3, Hobby Papers, Library of Congress,
q.f. Meyer, Creating G.I. Jane, 26.
12
In the 18th and 19th century, the term ‘‘camp follower’’
denoted civilian women who followed the units and rendered
services such as cooking or laundry which would later be
subsumed under the Army’s quartermaster corps. Implicitly, this
could include sexual services. ‘‘Cross-Dressers’’ were women who
donned uniforms and performed a male identity to participate in
combat. The term acquired a connotation of ‘‘invertedness’’ at the
beginning of the 20th century, a combination of a masculine
identity with a lesbian orientation (Holm, 1982, pp. 3 – 9; Stallard,
1978).
13
Such accusations were frequently implied and sometimes
raised quite explicitly. ‘‘The main need for WAACs overseas is
to provide them [officers] with women’’, wrote a male corporal
to a Waac friend. Letter, Corporal Badgett to Corporal Helen
Stroude, August 11, 1943. NARA, RG 165, Series 55, Box 192,
File: Rumors.
14
There was no factual basis for these charges (Treadwell,
1954, p. 203). They were immediately denied by the Secretary of
War, Henry Stimson, WAC Director Hobby, President Roosevelt
and Eleanor Roosevelt and an investigation of the origins of the
rumors and of possible Axis influence was conducted by the
Army’s military Intelligence Service (Ibid.). The average
discharge rate for WAC personnel discharged because of
pregnancy was 1.4 per thousand per month in 1943 and did
not vary much over the course of the war (US Department of the
Army, Administrative Services Division, AGO, cited in Treadwell, 1954, p. 775).
15
Letter from John Warren to Comdr. Neil B. Wolcott, June 11,
1943; NARA, RG 165, Series 55, Box 192, File: Rumors.
16
The actual percentage of African American Wacs varied
between 3.9% and 5.9% between 1943 and 1945 (US Dept. Of the
Army, AGO, Strength Accounting Branch, Strength of the Army
(STM-30), 1 January 1949, cited in Treadwell, 1954, p. 777).
According to the War Department policy, the strength of African
American personnel was to be proportionate to the black population
of the country, which was 10.6% (Moore, 1996, p. 29). Due to the
discriminating assignment policies for black Wacs, the Corps never
filled the authorized quotas.
17
War Department Circular 172, 2 May 44, sec. IV cited in
Treadwell (1954, p. 618).
18
‘‘Life in the WAC, the Women’s Army Corps’’, Pamphlet: A Word to Parents, Box 12, Hobby Papers, Library of
Congress.
19
27
Of 18 million men examined during the war, the military
rejected 4000 – 5000 for homosexuality. After the war, 9000 gay
men and lesbians who had served but received ‘‘section eight’’ or
‘‘blue’’ discharges for undesirable habits or character traits, were
disqualified from obtaining benefits under the G.I Bill (Bérubé,
1990, p. 33).
20
In total, of the 36,677,000 draftees who were classified
17,955,000 were examined, 6,420,000 were rejected, and
10,022,000 were inducted. The average duration of service was
33 months for enlisted personnel, 39 months for officers (U.S. Dept.
of Commerce, Bureau of the Census 1989, 1140).
21
The importance of issues of ‘‘mannishness’’ in the WAC
is further underlined by the debates on the proper design of the
uniform. Stereotypes linking Sapphic relations or lesbianism to
masculinity in women’s anatomy, dress or comportment date
back to the Romans and have been reproduced in numerous
works of fiction and poetry such as Radclyffe Hall’s best-selling
novel The Well of Loneliness which was published in 1928. For
a discussion of cross-dressing and passing see Garber, 1992; The
San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project, 1990; Robson,
1992.
22
Whether such educational lectures on homosexuality
should be extended to trainees was highly controversial. The
investigative team at Fort Oglethorpe outlined in a secret
testimony both sides of the debate, but was inclined to support
the existing regulation that prohibited ‘‘any instruction or even
any reference to the subject of homosexuality.’’ (Ft. Oglethorpe
testimony, pp. 225, 228).
23
WD Pamphlet No. 35-1, Sex Hygiene Course, Officers and
Officer Candidates, Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, May 27,
1943, pp. 26 – 28.
24
Sullivan had broken off from traditional psychiatry and
created a theory and practice of ‘‘interpersonal psychiatry’’. As
coeditor of the journal Psychiatry and president of The William
Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation (1940), he was determined
to apply the principles of psychiatry to society as a whole.
Overholser had already studied psychiatric therapy for soldiers
during the First World War while working in the neuropsychiatric
section of the US Army Medical Corps in France. After the war, he
helped enact the Briggs Law which provided for the mental
evaluation of any person convicted of a serious crime and taught at
Boston University and George Washington School of Medicine in
Washington D.C. In 1937, Overholser was nominated by the
American Psychiatric Association to be the superintendent of St.
Elizabeth’s Hospital, a government run institution in Washington,
DC and chairman of the National Research Council’s Committee on
Neuropsychiatry. Steckel was chairman of the American Psychiatric
Association’s military Mobilization Committee, of which Sullivan
and Overholser were members (Evans, 1996).
25
Memorandum, Chief of Staff to Commanding Generals,
November 10, 1942, Su: Discipline and Courts-martial, NARA, RG
407, Decimal File 250-4. Memorandum, from. Col. John M. Weir,
Executive, JAG, to The Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, December 6,
1942, in AGO ‘‘Sodomists’’ File.
26
Memorandum, from. Col. John M. Weir, Executive, JAG, to
Director of Military Personnel, Headquarters Services of Supply,
December 17, 1942, in AGO ‘‘Sodomists’’ File.
28
M.M. Hampf / Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 13–30
27
‘‘Sodomists’’, Memorandum No. W615-4-43, January 10,
1943.
28
(1) Min, Conf. with Chief, Classif. and Repl. Br AGO.
SPWA 337.2, incl. Tables A. B. (2) WDBPR Press Release, 5 Jul
43, cited in Treadwell, 1954, p. 231.
29
‘‘Homosexuals’’, WD Circular No. 3, January 3, 1944.
Circular Letter No. C-44-12, from BuPers. to All Ships and
Stations, Su: Procedure for the Disposition of Homosexuals Among
Personnel of the United States Naval Service, January 28, 1944.
30
Memoranda to Adjutant General from Director of Personnel,
WAAC, su: Enrollment of Auxiliaries with Psychical Defects or
Doubtful Reputation, November 19, 1942; from Chief, Appointment and Induction Branch to DWAAC, November 23, 1942; and
from DWAAC to Adjutant General, Appointment and Induction
Branch, December 5, 1942 NARA, RG 165, Entry 54, Box 111,
Army G-1 WAC Decimal File 1942-46.
31
Investigation at Fort Oglethorpe, GA. Data WAAC Officers
RG 165, Entry 55, Box 201, report, pp. 113, 115.
32
Lecture Series on Sex Hygiene for Officers and Officer
Candidates, WAAC, pp. 45 – 55, NARA, RG 165, Entry 54, Box
145. Margaret Craighill was appointed by the surgeon general to
oversee matters of health and welfare in the WAC. The new
screening procedures agreed upon at a WAC Selection Conference
held July 27 – 29, 1944 were of particular importance to Col. Hobby
in the wake of the ‘‘Slander campaign’’ of 1943.
33
‘‘Sex Hygiene Course’’, May 27, 1943 and May 1945, War
Department Pamphlet No. 35-1, Lecture 5, ‘‘Homosexuality’’.
34
Although Bérubé (1990) quotes Nell (‘‘Johnnie’’) Phelps’s
as sergeant, she was in fact a corporal, as a Freedom of
Information Request submitted to the National Personnel Records
Center, St. Louis, MO by another WAC veteran reveals. Phelps
memories have been included in numerous books and films, but
appear to be largely fabricated (Pat Jernigan, posting To: HMINERVA@H-NET.MSU.EDU (H-NET List for Discussion of
Women and the Military and Women in War), Subj: Re: Women in
World War II for Teachers, Date: 11/16/99, 10:43:24 AM EST,
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~minerva/).
35
War Department, WD Pamphlet 35-2, The WAC Officer—A
Guide to Successful Leadership, Washington DC, 1 February 1945,
p. 51; NARA RG 165, Entry 55, Box 222, Folder 3.
36
Tab A and B, Investigation at Fort Oglethorpe, GA. Data
WAAC Officers RG 165, Entry 55, Box 201.
37
Preston, Albert (1946). History of Psychiatry in the Women’s
Army Corps, NARA RG 165, Entry 54, Box 143, File 700.
38
Tab A, Memo to the adjutant general, Appointment and
Induction Branch, Attn: Col Sumner, from 3rd Officer Virginia
Beeler Bock, executive officer, Personnel Division, WAAC, For the
Director, December 5, 1942; Su: Enrollment of WAAC Auxiliaries
with Doubtful Moral Standards, Dec 15, 1942, NARA RG 165,
Entry 54, Box 111.
39
Other WAC veterans deny the existence of large lesbian
cliques within the WAC. See Margaret Salm, posting to
H-MINERVA@h-net.msu.edu, Date: 97-04-03, 14:28:31 EST,
Subj: Book Publishing & the Truth. The official WAC
historian Treadwell (1954, pp. 625 – 626) also states ‘‘the problem
of homosexuality occurred [. . .] rarely in the WAC.’’
40
Investigation at 3rd WAC Training Center Fort Oglethorpe,
Draft of suggested letter to Commanding Officers at the stations of
certain WAC personnel suspected of homosexuality RG 159, Entry
26F, Box 17A, File 333.9. June and July 1944.
41
Oglethorpe Report, p. 14.
42
Investigation at 3rd WAC Training Center Fort Oglethorpe,
Draft of suggested letter to Commanding Officers at the stations of
certain WAC personnel suspected of homosexuality RG 159, Entry
26F, Box 17A, File 333.9.
43
Investigation at Fort Oglethorpe, GA. Data WAAC Officers
RG 165, Entry 55, Box 201.
44
Letter from Sergeant Mildred Loos to Private Virginia
Churchill, 30 April 1944, Ft. Oglethorpe (Exhibit C, Incl. 2)
NARA RG 159, Entry 26F, Box 17A, File 333.9. Records of the
Inspector General; 3rd WAC Training Center Fort Oglethorpe,
GA.
45
Ft. Oglethorpe, (Exhibit B, p. 10, L. 7 – 8). Gay male and
lesbian authors of love letters faced the problem of wartime
censorship and frequently used abbreviations, slang and ‘‘guarded
terms that only our kind can understand’’ as one G.I advised his
friend in 1943, q.f. Bérubé 1990, p. 120.
46
Exhibit B, p. 104, L.1 – 2.
47
Investigation at Fort Oglethorpe, GA. Data WAAC Officers
RG 165, Entry 55, Box 201.
48
Exhibit F.
49
Exhibit B, p. 63, L.4.
50
Exhibit B, p. 318, L. 32 – 33.
51
Exhibit B, p. 318, L. 35 – 38.
52
Lieutenant Warren was offered resignation for the good of
the service under provisions of paragraph 2a (1), WD Circular No.
5, 3 January 1944. This is an administrative discharge for officers in
lieu of court-martial, which does not entitle the individual to
veterans’ benefits and in most cases made finding civilian
employment very difficult.
53
This ‘‘greeting’’ was given to a noncommissioned officer on
the second day of basic training. The NCO chose not to give her
name (Herbert, 1998, p. 55).
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