A former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor has revealed details of anti-gay harassment by fellow CIA contractors while he was stationed in Afghanistan in June.
Brett Jones, the only openly gay contractor with the CIA’s paramilitary Global Response Staff (GRS), told ABC News’ Brian Ross in an interview that he was bullied and harassed because of his sexual orientation so much that he feared for his safety. He has since filed a complaint with the CIA claiming he was discriminated against.
“I just had no idea where it ended or where it began and if I was to raise my hand and say, ‘Hey, this is a problem,’ people would lose their jobs. In an environment where everyone is armed and at a heightened sense of awareness, a little stressed out, maybe a little PTSD floating in there somewhere, that’s not the environment for me to do it in,” Jones said in the interview. “When people’s livelihoods and careers and everything are threatened, they tend to do some pretty crazy things.”
Jones officially came out professionally in February 2014 in an article posted to SOFREP.com, a website for special operations military veterans. He has since written a book about being gay inside of a special operations unit, Pride: The Story of the First Openly Gay Navy SEAL. In 2002, Jones was the subject of a Navy investigation as to whether he was gay, which could have resulted in him being kicked out of the Navy under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Though the investigation was eventually dropped, Jones decided to leave the military at the end of his service term, in June 2003. Surprisingly, as he told ABC News back in 2014, most of his fellow SEALs were supportive of him.
But during his most recent stint in Afghanistan, Jones alleges that some of his fellow contractors appeared to be out to get him. Jones told The San Diego Union-Tribunethat his coworkers made anti-gay comments, bullied and played tricks on him, and even once temporarily abandoned him in the middle of the desert, in 120-degree heat and without water, saying he could walk back to the compound on his own. As a result, Jones began to fear for his safety because he believed his colleagues would not protect him in an emergency.
“Before you go outside the wire, you have to know that those guys are going to have your back,” Jones told ABC News. “You have to have that confidence. You have to know that. You can’t have any doubts whatsoever because the minute something goes wrong, and it happens and it’s fast and it’s furious and it’s violent and you have to know that people are going to make smart decisions and that they’re going to have your back, just like they need to know that you’re going to have theirs.”
Jones also alleges that the contractors and CIA employees gave a PowerPoint presentation with slides featuring sexist, anti-gay and racist language. He made copies of the PowerPoint slides, as well as of some racist and homophobic images that were on an official CIA computer, and then made up a family emergency that would allow him to return to the United States. Jones later provided some redacted copies of the slides to ABC News.
The CIA has declined to comment on the specifics of the allegations, but issued a statement condemning any anti-gay behavior, and noting that the CIA has ways for people to report discrimination, including, as it pointed out to the Union-Tribune, a 24-hour confidential hotline and a private email channel for its Office of Equal Employment Opportunity.
“We take very seriously any allegation of sexual, racial or any other form of harassment and/or discrimination at CIA,” spokesman Dean Boyd said in a statement sent to multiple news outlets. “We have a Zero Tolerance Policy against such behavior and CIA leadership is committed to holding all employees accountable for living and promoting this policy.”
The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, quietly reinstated an anti-harassment policy that once forbade users from misgendering or deadnaming others.
However, it is unclear if the change will stay in place following comments from owner Elon Musk.
Musk, who has sought to portray himself as a proponent of "free speech," removed the policy in April 2023, responding to users who complained after being banned for expressing anti-transgender sentiment.
In a recently updated section of the platform's policies, the company says that, where required by local laws, the platform will reduce the visibility of posts that "purposefully use different pronouns to address someone other than what that person uses for themselves, or that use a previous name that someone no longer goes by as part of their transition."
The owners of a Buffalo-area pizzeria recently agreed to pay $25,000 to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of a transgender man formerly employed by the restaurant.
Last month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which brought the lawsuit against T.C. Wheelers Bar & Pizzeria, in Tonawanda, N.Y., on behalf of former cook Quinn Gambino, announced the settlement agreement.
The lawsuit stemmed from verbal harassment and abuse that Gambino was subjected to from restaurant managers and co-workers between January and May 2021.
According to the EEOC's lawsuit, the owners and staff of the restaurant -- as well as customers -- repeatedly misgendered Gambino, who noted that he was male and did not reveal his transgender status when he first applied for the job.
A city that adopted an anti-drag ordinance that technically criminalized gay existence will pay $500,000 as part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the city on behalf of a pro-LGBTQ organization.
The Murfreesboro, Tennessee city council initially approved the "decency ordinance," which intended to prohibit drag performances on public property and prohibit people from engaging in "indecent behavior" or displaying "indecent material" in public -- all in the name of protecting minors from age-inappropriate content.
Violators would be banned from sponsoring events in public spaces for a period of two to five years.
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