A woman expelled from the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1969 has been carrying a criminal conviction for being a lesbian for over 50 years — and she didn’t even realize it until recently.

Liz Stead, 78, was thrown out of the RAF when her superiors discovered a love letter from her then-girlfriend, the BBC reported.

Related

Gay congressmen tell Pentagon to restore honor of soldiers dismissed under “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
It has been about 13 years since the U.S. repealed its ban on gay soldiers, but many are still waiting for justice.

More than five decades later, the expelled veteran discovered she was also given a criminal conviction for “perceived same-sex sexual activity” upon her dismissal from the RAF.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

She’d unknowingly lived with a criminal record for most of her adult life.

Stead said she was “astonished” to learn of the conviction.

“I can’t think how it is on my records and I’ve never known about it,” she said.

Stead discovered the criminal conviction last December, when she applied for a program that awards financial redress to LGBTQ+ members of the UK’s military who were expelled during a long-time ban on their service.

Stead’s application was denied. That’s when she learned that along with her expulsion, she’d been “convicted” of being a lesbian, and had a criminal record saying so.

“I can think of one job where it might have been the reason I didn’t get it,” Stead said. “I’ve worked in local government most of my life, and I have to wonder, had they known about this, would I have still had that job?”

She was advised she had to apply for a pardon by the government’s Home Office before making her financial redress claim.

“I didn’t know anything about it, so I had no idea what the pardon would even be for, but I was told it was related to same-sex activity,” she said.

Stead said that, previous to her dismissal, she served in the RAF for three and a half years and had an exemplary record. But after the love letter from her girlfriend was discovered, everything changed.   

Stead was interrogated by the Special Investigation Branch, the detective arm of the military police, which heavily focused on investigations on same-sex sexual activity at the time. She was subsequently expelled from the military.

Homosexuality was partially decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967 — two years before her expulsion — but a military ban remained in effect until 2000.

Stead became one of 40 people in England and Wales who’ve had similar convictions erased since 2023, when the government’s Disregards and Pardons program was expanded to include women — another discriminatory aftereffect of the original ban.

“Liz’s experience shows how important it is that justice is properly done to all LGBT+ veterans who suffered under the cruel ban,” said Peter Gibson, CEO of LGBT+ military charity Fighting With Pride, which helped Stead apply for her pardon. “Lives and careers were ruined under that ‘gay ban.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.