When the Military Expelled GBTQ Soldiers with "Blue Discharges"-  During WW II and beyond, blue ticket discharges carried powerful stigma-and serious negative consequences.  In May 1944, Lemuel S. Brown, a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War II, received a blue slip of paper from the military, notifying him he was being dismissed from duty. The reason?  "Undesirable" behavior-specifically, an accusation of "attempting to perpetrate an act of homosexuality," as he explained in a letter to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, from whom he was seeking legal help.  He wanted to fight his so-called blue discharge," since receiving it carries a powerful stigma and serious negative consequences for his future.                               During WW II, Brown was one of nearly 50,000 U.S. Army soldiers, according to a 1946 war department  estimate, who received a blue discharge dismissing them from the armed services.    Rarely backed by any formal proceedure of inquiry, these notices facilitated the removal of thousands of queer people, African Americans, people with mental illnesses, alcohol or substance issues, bed wetters and anyone else the military classified as "Undesirable."  A code in the top corner of the notice explained the reason for the discharge-"HS," for instance, meant the person was considered a homosexual.        Existing in a limbo between an "honorable" and "dishonorable" termination, blue discharges profoundly derailed the lives of queer WW II Veterans for decades to come.  Those marked with an "HS" - Essentially outed recipients at a time when sodomy was still a felony in every state, precluding many returning to homes and communities  likely to shum them.  It raises alarm bells for potential employers, derailing future careers.  And it barred recipients from receiving benefits from the G.I. Bill, the government program that gave Veterans generous funding for college tuition, home and business loans, and employment insurance, crucial stepping stones to financial and social stability.                                                                                    At the end of the 19th century, the U.S. military began expanding its menu of options.  It added a Without Honor Discharge in 1893, followed by an unclassified Discharge in 1913.  Both could be issued without a court-martial hearing and because they both were printed on blue paper, they together became known as "Blue Discharges."      With WW II's massive human mobilization, the military shifted from its practice of jailing soldiers accused of homosexuality (which requires time-consuming, expensive court-martials) to simply deeming them psychologically unfit.  Blue discharges could be dispensed to anyone with "undesirable traits of character," a term ultimately applied in large numbers to queer people; Blue discharges heavily impacted Black Americans. They were more likely to be scrutinized, discriminated against and given more extreme punishments for relatively minor infractions,         According to Jennifer Dominique Jones (Univ. of Michigan historian), the NAACP worked with Black service members accused of homosexuality, like Lemuel Brown, to appeal to the Discharge Review Board for a change status-usually with little success.  For those veterans already facing formidable racist barriers to jobs and housing, the stain of the blue discharge further crippled their future prospects for chances for stability.  In part because of the difficulties of scientifically measuring queerness, the war department in 1944 began to allow discharges on the basis of "Latent Homosexuality."  That gave officials license to eject someone for homosexuality under the blue discharge system, simply because they seemed gay-even if the military lacked proof.  In October 1945, the Pittsburgh Courier, a leading Black Newspaper, published an article that accused the U.S. military of handing out blue discharges due to racial prejudice.  The report sparked an investigation by a Seven-member special committee from the House Committee on Military Affairs.  In January 1946, the committee published a report lambasting the blue discharge system-as over-used and for bringing long-lasting discrimination on its victims.  When Veterans were forced to show their blue discharge system as over-used and for bringing long-lasting discrimination on its victims. When veterans were forced to show their blue discharge to potential employers, companies assumed "that there is something radically wrong with the man in question," the report stated, or that they committed an act "So mysterious that it cannot be talked about or writted down, but must be left to the imagination."           Blue discharges, in other words, created cascading discrimation that haunted the job prospects of ex-service members for decades to come.  The report also criticized the Veterans Administration for blocking homosexuals from receiving G.I. benefits, insisting the agency should not be in the business of "Passing moral verdicts on the history of any soldier."    At the end of 1947, the military reverted back to dismissing homosexuals under ambiguously honorable conditions. Instead of "blue discharges," it labeled them simply "other than honorable discharges."                                                                In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower signed executive order 10450, which required the federal government to fire queer people.  What followed came to be known as the "Lavender Scare," during which thousands of queer workers were driven out of their U.S. government jobs.  Between WW II and 2011, more soldiers were removed for homosexuality.  Among them was Harvey Milk, a Korean war Veteran, who went on to become the first openly gay political official in the United States.