On this day in Queerstory: honoring queer military history

November 11 is a day when much of the world falls quiet. In many countries it’s Remembrance Day — a moment to honour the dead of past wars, to reflect on sacrifice and service. But for queer communities, the silence of the day has long carried another weight: the countless LGBTQ+ soldiers, nurses, and civilians erased from the official stories of bravery. Over time, though, November 11 has become a date when queer history reasserts itself — demanding to be remembered, not as footnote, but as fact.

During the First and Second World Wars, queer people served in every branch of the armed forces, often under conditions that required concealment. Love letters had to be coded, friendships carefully curated, and relationships hidden even as lives were risked in combat. In Britain, where November 11 is marked by the laying of poppies, stories have gradually emerged from those shadows.

One of the most moving came to light in 2018, when the Imperial War Museum highlighted the case of Wilfred Owen, the gay British poet whose work defined the trauma of World War I. Owen’s private letters, long suppressed by biographers, revealed an emotional and romantic attachment to men — a truth that would have been scandalous in his lifetime. On November 11, 1918, the day the Armistice was signed, Owen was already dead — killed a week earlier in battle. His mother received the telegram announcing his death as church bells rang to celebrate peace.

A century later, queer historians reframed that story, reminding the public that queer soldiers were always part of the collective sacrifice. Owen’s poetry — tender, raw, and haunted — has since been read at queer Remembrance services, including at the National LGBTQ+ Memorial in London. The act of remembering him openly, as a gay man and a war hero, is itself a quiet correction of history’s omissions.

Across the Atlantic, November 11 has carried a different but related kind of reckoning. In the United States, 2010 marked a crucial moment in the struggle against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy that had forced thousands of queer service members into silence or discharge since its introduction in the 1990s. On November 11 that year, as President Obama attended Veterans Day ceremonies, activists with groups like GetEQUAL and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network staged protests outside the White House, reading the names of queer soldiers expelled under the law.

Their actions coincided with a political shift. Within months, the U.S. Congress voted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” ending nearly two decades of institutionalised hypocrisy. When the repeal took effect in 2011, queer soldiers could finally serve openly — a transformation that would have been unimaginable even a decade earlier. The images of uniformed couples kissing publicly for the first time after returning from deployment remain among the most striking symbols of that change.

Yet November 11 isn’t only about militaries and memorials. It’s also about culture — the ways queer people remember themselves when institutions refuse to. In 1993, on this date, American filmmaker Derek Jarman’s final project, Blue, had its British television debut on Channel 4. The film, a single field of deep blue accompanied by Jarman’s narration and music, chronicled his experience living — and dying — with AIDS.

Broadcast simultaneously on radio and television, Blue was radical in its minimalism. It stripped away images, forcing audiences to listen, to imagine, to feel. Jarman, almost blind by then, offered not a plea for pity but a meditation on mortality, art, and the politics of visibility. Premiering on November 11 — a day synonymous with remembrance — the film recast mourning itself as a creative act. It stood as a requiem not just for one man but for an entire generation lost to indifference.

From the trenches of 1918 to the activism of 2010 to the art of 1993, November 11 draws a line through the heart of queer endurance. The date becomes both memorial and manifesto — a reminder that queer service, queer loss, and queer resilience have always existed, whether acknowledged or not.

As poppies are pinned and flags lowered, it’s worth remembering that silence has never protected queer people; only recognition does. Each November 11, when the world pauses to honour sacrifice, queer communities quietly reclaim their place within that memory. They, too, fought. They, too, loved. They, too, deserve to be remembered.