After being dismissed from the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the British military’s ban on LGBTQ+ service members, Professor Andrew Hartle advocates for others dealing with the fallout.
In his final years of service in the RAF, anaesthetist Andrew Hartle (Medicine 1987) endured gruelling interviews by service police, was forced to hide relationships, and was followed as he went about everyday life.
The British military’s ban on LGBTQ+ members, which was lifted in 2000, meant he was unable to be his true self. After much mental torment, he was outed by the News of the World in an article describing an ‘RAF doc’s gay fling with an AIDS victim’.
Andrew now jokes that it made a good story, except for the fact “only the gay bit was true”.
The military ban was ruled unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights in 1999. In 2023, an apology was made and financial restitution began. "Nearly 30 years on, and there was finally some recognition for the harm that was done,” said Andrew. “Nothing can change what happened to me, but the apology was the start of the process.”
The reason why people like me share our stories is to remind others of how bad it was – and that we cannot go backwards.
Andrew joined the RAF as a medical cadet during his second year at Leeds, and went on to enjoy the time of his life. As a student, he benefitted from funding support and summers spent with the military. On graduation, he discovered he was well suited to the organisation and structure of life in the forces. He also found greater clinical freedom in a small hospital environment, lived a busy social life, and was involved in search and rescue helicopter flying and fast jets.
But why join at all, when there was a military ban for LGBTQ+ individuals? “When I was at Leeds, I was very much in the closet,” Andrew said. “I really didn’t think the ban applied to me.
“I knew from when I was at school that I was different to everyone else. I recognise looking back that I was gay, but at the time I didn’t know that’s what it was.”
Growing up in the 1970s, there was no sex education at his school and Andrew had no positive gay role models. He remembers the general impression that being gay was wrong, a feeling that was hard to shake for the 17-year-old arriving in Leeds. Despite the existence of Gay Soc and a gay scene at the University, Andrew wasn’t part of it. When he began a relationship with a male student at Bodington Hall, they kept it a secret – and the increased coverage of the HIV and AIDS pandemic pushed Andrew “further into the closet than I’d been before”.
Whilst hiding in plain sight seemed sustainable at the start of his military career, when Andrew was sent to serve in Cyprus during the Gulf War as an aeromedical officer in 1991, things changed: “It was a turning point for me,” Andrew said. “I started to realise that if anything happened to me during the war, I would die not having lived my real self.”
He began to live two lives – the real Andrew, and his RAF persona. The two clashed when he entered a relationship with a man – a more senior RAF officer. The service police investigated, and Andrew endured a gruelling five-hour interview where he denied everything. Suspecting he was being followed from then on, he would switch buses on his way to meet people and change direction to lose followers.
“It was years of torment,” Andrew said. “I eventually decided I was going to leave the RAF. And that's when I was outed by the News of the World.”
Andrew worked with legal representatives to limit the damaging lies of the story, whilst coping with the reality of leaving the RAF – which was all he had known in his adult life. “But it was a very efficient way of coming out to everyone you know,” Andrew joked. “The newspaper has a circulation of around four million people.
“For anyone else trying to negotiate that time in their lives, there is no right way of coming out. It's your choice who you tell and when you tell them. Being safe physically, mentally, and psychologically is the single most important thing.”
Andrew describes himself as lucky because a senior colleague helped him to pick up his career quickly at St Mary’s hospital. He seemed to thrive, breaking countless barriers to become the first openly gay consultant and head of department at the hospital. He became a professor of practice in 2021, and amongst other executive positions, has been the President of the Association of Anaesthetists. “I was aggressively ambitious, I think,” Andrew said. “I wanted to show the RAF what they missed out on.”
But the trauma caught up eventually. In 2015, he began to address significant mental health problems. “I had brushed it away, pushed on with my career. I’d never addressed it, and it’s taken many years to deal with it. The long-term impact was huge.”
For other LGBTQ+ veterans, that impact also included lost pensions, unemployment, and prison.
Andrew joined Fighting with Pride as a trustee in 2023. The charity supports LGBTQ+ veterans and their families, helped to bring about an independent review into the ban, and has helped see ranks and medals restored. He has also reestablished good relations with the RAF – praising their current approach to support LGBTQ+ service members – and is the Honorary Civilian Consultant Advisor in Anaesthetics to the RAF and the President of the Tri-Service Society. He is the first openly gay man to hold either role.
“I am in a position now to be vocal and share my story to remind others of how bad it was – and that we cannot go backwards.
“Life is still not perfect, but it's a lot better. We must keep working to improve things.”
Further information
Andrew was named in the Leeds Pride 25 in June, a list which celebrates LGBTQ+ individuals and allies from the global Leeds community making a positive impact in the Pride space.
Read more about the work of Fighting With Pride
For more information, email Ed Newbould, Digital Communications Officer at the University of Leeds, at e.w.newbould@leeds.ac.uk.