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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyApril 10th, 2012
The CIA and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) recently hosted the first Intelligence Community (IC) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Summit. Participants included members of LGBT employee groups from nine IC agencies and CIA and ODNI leaders. The Summit was designed to ensure the Agency maintains a high performing, engaged, and diverse workforce.
CIA Associate Deputy Director (ADD) Sue Bromley welcomed participants to the February event, highlighting the importance of inclusion in mission success: “When I look at our mission and our challenges, what I look to is my single greatest resource at the CIA—our people,” she said. “In order to get the most out of our people, we have to make sure there is an environment where everybody can thrive, where everybody feels secure and comfortable, so they can bring their unique contribution to our challenges,” ADD/CIA Bromley continued.
Participants agreed that a fully inclusive IC directly and positively affects the workforce’s contribution to mission. Discussions delved into collective IC experiences and best practices for making agencies welcoming to LGBT employees. Officers considered policy implementation, lessons learned, and ways to increase the understanding and visibility of transgender issues. Participants also shared ideas about leveraging LGBT supporters and assessing the mission impact of LGBT officers.
Sixty years ago, LGBT people were seen as security risks. Now the intelligence agencies see us as assets “with the critical skills,
knowledge, cultural backgrounds, and abilities needed to successfully meet mission requirements.
Fischer? LaBarbera? Barber? You seeing this?
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StraightGrandmother
April 10th, 2012
I guess it is true, the gays ARE everywhere, LOL H8ters.
Hunter
April 10th, 2012
My money’s on Tony Perkins, making portentous predictions about how our national security will be irreparably damaged.
Maybe someone should interview Elaine Donnelley — she has as much experience in espionage as she does in the military.
Sean
April 10th, 2012
I don’t know if you want to change your title or not, but in this part of the US, the term you use is a derogatory word for black people.
MJC
April 10th, 2012
Tony Perkins is a national security risk.
tim
April 10th, 2012
This has been going on for years – hardly new.
@sean
I get that the term can mean different things depending on location but the generally accepting use these days is to refer to spies and its been used freely inside and outside the intelligence committee since at least the 60s. Matter of fact there is a 2011 show in Britain called “spooks”
Steve
April 10th, 2012
You can’t blackmail someone who has nothing to hide
David Waite
April 10th, 2012
As a black U.S. citizen I am appalled that a commenter would equate your slang word for spies with a racial term. It says far more about the commenter than it does about BTB. Please don’t change your title, which juxtaposed two slang words (“spook” and “queer”) rather cleverly, to make a statement.
I wonder if the publisher of “The Spook Who Sat By The Door” was similarly ‘informed’ about some Americans’ continued usage of ancient (’50s and ’60s) racist use of the word.
Duck
April 10th, 2012
Actually, one of the good things Clinton did for our community was to issue an Executive Order proclaiming that security clearances could not be denied based on sexual orientation. So, as recently as 20 years ago one could lose one’s security clearance for being LGBT. (I think that the more recent reasoning was that since you were LGBT you were subject to being blackmailed and thus a security risk, during the McCarthy days add in “un-American”, “immoral” and other insults).
Priya Lynn
April 10th, 2012
As a white Canadian I’ve never heard the word “spook” used to mean a spy but I have heard it used as a derogatory term for black people. Maybe that says far more about me than BTB but what I don’t know.
RavenBiker
April 10th, 2012
Nice.
jamesnimmo
April 10th, 2012
The now-found value of gays and lesbians that the alphabet spy agencies have begun publicizing just shows how ordinary our tribe can be: dangerous, double-dealing, even murderous–all of course for a good cause, indoctrinated patriotism. I thought we were better than the straights.
andrewdb
April 10th, 2012
A few years ago, when the Defense Department was busying throwing out gay linguists from the Defense Language Institute, a freind of mine who is reasonably high in the intelligence community said they were fine with that – the DoD could train people on their budget and the three-letter agency that person worked for would hire them (at a higher salary)! My tax dollars at work.
MattNYC
April 10th, 2012
This is good to see.
Let no one forget that a closeted, persecuted-to-suicide gay man essential ended the war with Germany.
Among other reasons I stopped pursuing employment with the FBI in the 90s (even though the ban had been lifted by Clinton) was that I was just coming out and wasn’t yet ready for the inevitable mass coming-out that would have been necessary.
MattNYC
April 10th, 2012
er, “essentially”
jerry
April 12th, 2012
Actually, MattNYC, Alan Touring was not closeted and when the authorities asked him, he freely admitted that he was homosexual(no use of gay then). That’s when the harassment started that drove him to suicide.
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