australian soldiers convicted for gay sex can finally have it wiped from their records. it only took 34 years. we'll take it.

via QNews, Star Observer, OUTinPerth and AAP

Until 1992, consensual sex between two people of the same sex in the Australian Defence Force could be prosecuted as a service offense. As of Tuesday, the convictions that came out of that can be wiped. Not pardoned, not footnoted: the government's own release says they will be "treated as if the conviction never happened."

Veterans' Affairs Minister Matt Keogh opened applications at the Anzac Memorial in Sydney. "This is long overdue reform," he said, per QNews. "It's something that happened in states and territories decades ago." The release calls the military discipline system "the final jurisdiction in Australia" to allow it. The law itself passed Parliament in September.

Anyone with a conviction can apply, and so can a representative or someone with "a special interest" in it, which in practice means the families of veterans who have since died. People who were pushed out administratively rather than convicted can ask for a separate review of their discharge. Applications go through Defence's military justice page, and the government says a formal apology is coming later this year.

The scale is real. AAP reports incomplete records showing at least 489 men and 165 women investigated for homosexual activity between 1953 and 1992. "It's the start of full equality," Rachael Cosgrove, president of DEFGLIS, the group for LGBTQ service members,, told QNews. Advocates quoted by Star Observer are already asking about money, which the Senate has twice declined to endorse.

A note from the American side of the Pacific: our own Pentagon is currently reading medical records to find the trans troops it missed. Australia took 34 years to clean up after a ban. We seem to be building a new one. Good on ya, mates.