The USA Made a "Gay Bomb". Here's Why.

The Gay Bomb.

All right, pause for a few moments: and decide for yourself exactly what you think this could possibly be.

The correct answer is that the Gay Bomb was a proposed chemical weapon that would turn the enemy gay, and induce a homosexual ecstasy that would disable their interest in any warfaring endeavour whatsoever.

No, we are not making that up.

Development

The so-called Gay Bomb was proposed by the US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio in 1994, at a time when the Laboratory was tasked with identifying non-lethal weapons to fit the US’ military objectives. The Gay Bomb was described as a form of non-lethal offensive weaponry which would make enemy combatants “sexually irresistible to one another.”

Despite its insane description, documents released to a biological weapons watchdog in Austin, Texas confirm that the US military did investigate the idea. After its initial proposal in 1994, it was included in a CD-Rom produced by the US military in 2000 and submitted to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002. The plan for the project was unearthed through a Freedom of Information request by the Sunshine Project, a group monitoring the use of chemical and biological weapons — such as the gas used by Russian security forces in the disastrous Moscow Theatre raid in 2002. The Project revealed that $7.5m was requested by the Laboratory to develop the weapon over a six-year period.

Now, the title of the Gay Bomb is a little bit misleading, specifically the ‘Bomb’ part. The Gay Bomb was proposed not as a bomb per se but as an aerosol, something akin to pepper spray, which would release a powerful aphrodisiac upon the target. How exactly this was going to work, and what the consequences of being sprayed with the Gay Bomb would entail for the victim, are really just about open to interpretation.

And to really understand the thought process behind the concept, one has to understand the less-than-enlightened military thinking at the time. You see, the 1990s was a period when discussions around the role of homosexual people in military service was at the centre of military discourse. The year before the proposal, in 1993, then-US President Bill Clinton had introduced Department of Defense Directive 1304.26, commonly known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’. The directive declared it impermissible to discriminate against or harass closeted homosexuals or to prevent them from joining the military, but that openly gay individuals remained barred from military service.

The thinking behind the directive held that homosexuality in the military would create a (quote) unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.

The general consensus among military top brass was that homosexuals made for far-less than effective soldiers: that a gay man or woman couldn’t possibly keep their attention fixed on the murky business of warfare and would be a security risk ideally kept as far away from active service as possible. It followed that a ban on openly gay members of the military was in place since 1982, although engagement in homosexual activity had been grounds for dismissal from the American military since the Revolutionary War, and in the 1940s homosexuality was classified as a mental illness, automatically ensuring gay men and lesbian women could not be called up for service.

If, the thought process continued, gays made for such useless soldiers that they would not effectively serve the US military, then it would make perfect sense that they’d be ineffective also as opponents of the US military.

So with this dubious maxim in tow, the minds at the Wright Laboratory put two and two together, got 5, and put forward their proposal for the Gay Bomb to the Pentagon.

The strategy was quite simple. The military would conduct a flyover of an enemy camp, and release a cloud of gas over the target that would (quote): cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another.

The BBC concluded that the only appropriate bomber to use in such a mission would have to be the infamous Enola Gay.

But other details about the Gay Bomb were not entirely clear: what would be the chemical agent used, who exactly would it be used against, how long would the effects last and could they be reversed, and what would become of the incapacitated targets once they were lost to their homosexual delirium?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Gay Bomb was not rolled out, despite the Pentagon’s confirmation that it was put forward as a genuine proposal.

Problems

Now, there’s several problems with the Gay Bomb. As mentioned previously, it would almost certainly have been characterised as a chemical weapon. The fact of it being a hilarious chemical weapon unfortunately wouldn’t really change that classification. And chemical weapons are straight-up not allowed.

But there are several other questions. You might ask: if an offensive force had the reconnaissance and aerial power to douse the enemy with aerosols, why not just make life easier for themselves and wipe them out with conventional weapons? Incredibly, that would even probably be considered more legally permissible under international humanitarian law.

Chemical weapons are strictly prohibited under the terms of the Geneva Convention, something which would, as mentioned, likely be extended to use of this incapacitating aerosol. The US-based Arms Control Association described a chemical weapon as (quote) any toxic chemical that can cause death, injury, incapacitation, and sensory irritation, deployed via a delivery system, such as an artillery shell, rocket, or ballistic missile.

Aerial bombing, however, is permitted in warfare as long as it complies with military necessity, distinction, and proportionality. So it may even have been that to spray the military objective with the Gay Bomb would have been legally reprehensible, but to obliterate them with an old-fashioned bomb strike would not be. Go figure.

So the use of the Gay Bomb would likely not have been accepted by any international tribunal for conflicts, rendering the whole thing a bit pointless.

The pseudoscience behind the plan was also blind to the exploits of the few known gay personnel serving in the US military. Men like Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a recipient of both the Bronze Star for heroism and the Purple Heart for wounding in action, as well as an Air Force Commendation all relating to his distinguished service in the Vietnam War. In proposing the Gay Bomb, the Wright Laboratory seemed to have overlooked the possibility that this could result in soldiers like Matlovich to fight against it, something which — clearly — would not have been in its best interests.

But the biggest problem with the Gay Bomb is that it obviously wouldn’t have worked.

Aaron Belkin, director of the University of California’s Michael Palm Centre, which studies the issue of gays in the military, said: “The idea that you could submit someone to some aerosol spray and change their sexual behaviour is ludicrous.” There has never been a chemical product proved to have the capacity to change the sexual orientation of a person, nor has any conversion therapy proved able to do so either, despite this practice continuing to exist in some places.

Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes

Although the Gay Bomb never actually came into being, it nonetheless gained recognition at Harvard University in 2007.

That year, the Bomb became a laureate of the ‘Ig Nobel’ peace prize. The award, a tongue-in-cheek answer to the annual Nobel Peace Prize, is issued for (quote) ‘science that “first makes you laugh, then makes you think,”’, and was issued by six winners of the actual Nobel prize at Harvard. Regrettably, the architects of the Gay Bomb plan did not attend to claim recognition for their work. It was also noted by the National Library of Medicine that the Pentagon did not respond to inquiries about the future status of its initiative following the successful awarding of the Ig Nobel Prize, an initiative which was once referred to in the media as the ‘make love, not war’ plan.

Other winners on the night were the pharmaceutical drug Viagra, which was recognised for its groundbreaking ability to remedy jet lag in hamsters, as well as Dan Meyer, the subject of a British Medical Journal paper focusing on his ability to swallow the blade of a 60 cm sword.

Conspiracy Theories

Due to its failed development, the project never became part of the arsenal of weapons of the US military. It did, however, become part of the arsenal of some American conspiracy theorists, for whom the potential of induced homosexuality was certainly no laughing matter.

US radio host Alex Jones turned his sights on the supposed phenomenon in an infamous rant in 2010, often referred to as the ‘They’re Turning the Friggin’ Frogs Gay!’ rant. Although Jones didn’t directly mention the actual Gay Bomb, he drew a link between what he described as the sudden rise in the number of gay people and secretive government chemicals, going on to fortify his point by claiming that the majority of frogs in some parts of the United States were now gay.

Jones’ tirade was not really sophisticated enough to be directly linked back to the Gay Bomb alone, and he may have also been influenced by some reports from the 2000s that the weedkiller atrazine was determined to have a feminising effect on some male frogs.

However, studies on the effects caused by atrazine were inconclusive, and the US Environmental Protection Agency later stated in 2013 that no consistent such effects on amphibians caused by the chemical could be observed. Despite this, the atrazine conspiracy theory was revived by Presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy in 2023.

An Ignoble Legacy

Despite the ludicrousness of the Gay Bomb, and despite its only lasting legacy being that of having been ruthlessly clowned at the Ig Nobel Awards in 2007, the proposal did bear an indication of something more insidious, an ignoble chapter of United States military history in its own right.

It was the deep-rooted paranoia which resulted in ideas like the Gay Bomb which also saw Technical Sergeant Matlovich booted out of the army in 1975. It was the same thinking which ensured that the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy remained in place for almost twenty years, retaining homosexuality as grounds for dismissal from the military right up until 2011. By that time, around 14,000 soldiers had been dismissed under the policy.

The rights of the same-sex spouses of military personnel to Federal benefits was only secured by a Supreme Court ruling in 2015, and it was only in 2016 that Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning became the first openly-gay head of service of any department of the American military — a full twenty years after the Gay Bomb proposal and not less than fifty after Matlovich’s landmark discrimination suit against the US Air Force.

It is possible that many stellar soldiers were discouraged from serving in the military during that time, and that many other active servicemen and women secretly passed over for career advancement on the basis of their sexual orientation.

And discrimination against homosexual soldiers, unfortunately, remains common. A landmark study by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies on a sample of 227 lesbian, gay, or bisexual-identifying military personnel in the US military in 2020 produced damning results. The study determined that the sample reported (quote) an elevated risk of sexual harassment, stalking, and sexual assault during military service versus a control group of 276 non-LGBT-identifying personnel.

The study concluded that the test group also displayed higher levels of both posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms, and that the rates of reporting an incident of sexual assault were low. Another study by the US Military Health System in 2022 further found that suicide attempts among gay, lesbian or bisexual service personnel were as much as 2.3 times higher than among heterosexual personnel.

The legacy of the paranoiac exclusion of soldiers on the grounds of sexual orientation continues to remain legally-fraught, and lawsuits relating to the historic dismissals of individuals from the military due to their sexual orientation continue to this day.

In June this year, a US Federal court refused a Department of Defense request to dismiss a class action lawsuit which claimed that the military violated the constitutional rights of more than 35,000 LGBTQ veterans, who were not granted ‘honourable’ discharges after they were barred from serving due to their sexual orientation.

The so-called ‘other than honourable’ discharge can prevent veterans from receiving benefits including healthcare, job opportunities, loans, and financial assistance for tuition.

The case remains ongoing.

Key Takeaways

• The Gay Bomb was a proposed US Air Force weapon to turn enemies gay.
• The 1994 proposal was part of a push for non-lethal weapons.
• The plan was never implemented due to legal and scientific issues.
• The Gay Bomb reflects historical military discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals.
• The proposal was satirized with an Ig Nobel Prize in 2007.

Sources

• Original MegaProjects video: The USA Made a “Gay Bomb”. Here’s Why.
• https://allthatsinteresting.com/gay-bomb
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2018807/
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mb6music/A38582319
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4174519.stm
• https://dworakpeck.usc.edu/sites/default/files/2020-10/Schuyler%20Klemmer%20Mamey%20et%20al.pdf
• https://health.mil/News/Articles/2022/07/01/Suicide-BH-MSMR
• https://www.militaryonesource.mil/relationships/support-community/lgbtq-in-the-military/
• https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?hl=false&edition=1994&req=granuleid%3AUSC-1994-title10-section654&num=0&saved=%7CZ3JhbnVsZWlkOlVTQy0xOTk0LXRpdGxlMTAtY2hhcHRlcjM3%7C%7C%7C0%7Cfalse%7C1994#:~:text=(15)%20The%20presence%20in%20the,the%20essence%20of%20military%20capability
• https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/13/politics/robert-kennedy-jr-chemicals-water-children-frogs/index.html
• Hero image source by U.S. Secretary of Defense / openverse, by.

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