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Lesbian Who Fled Army Opens Legal Ground in Canada

By Wency Leung, WeNews correspondent
Monday, December 7, 2009

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (WOMENSENEWS)--For months, Pvt. Bethany Smith silently endured taunts and physical abuse from her fellow soldiers at Fort Campbell, Ky., for being a lesbian.

But when she received an anonymous note one day with a threat against her life, Smith decided she had to get out of the Army.

“It said that they were going to break into the supply room and get the keys to my room and beat me to death in my bed,” Smith said, adding that the letter came only a couple months after she learned the Army was deploying her to Afghanistan. “It was at that point that I knew I was more afraid of the people who were supposed to be on my side than people we were supposed to be fighting overseas.”

More than 12,000 service members have lost their jobs because of the U.S. military’s so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. A disproportionate number of those discharges are women, according to 2008 statistics gathered by the Washington-based Servicemembers Legal Defense Network from the government under the Freedom of Information Act.

With the help of an acquaintance, Smith abandoned Fort Campbell and drove for two straight days to Canada, where she hoped to seek asylum.

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