Mark Holm for The New York Times  Staff Sgt. Justin Lahl, vice president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at Kirtland Air Force Base.  ALBUQUERQUE â During his eight years in the Air Force, Staff Sgt. Justin Lahl grew adept at keeping his sexual orientation a secret â wincing inwardly when fellow airmen made homophobic wisecracks, nodding with a smile when others would caricature gay people for laughs.  Sergeant Lahl with Elise Thomasson, the groupâs secretary; Capt. Greg Moran, its president; and other group members at a park in Albuquerque.  He was painstakingly careful about whom he trusted, telling only his roommate and a few friends that he was gay.  These days, though, Sergeant Lahl, a 26-year-old aircraft mechanic, is not only open about his identity, but he has also become a leader of the Gay-Straight Alliance here at Kirtland Air Force Base, a support group for gay and lesbian service members that is the first of its kind in the Air Force.  The new organization at Kirtland, founded with the approval of the baseâs commander, is one of a handful of similar groups that have been forming at bases around the country since President Obama repealed in 2011 the militaryâs âdonât ask, donât tellâ policy, which barred openly gay and bisexual people from serving in the military.  Soldiers like Sergeant Lahl represent a new day for the military, in which gay and lesbian soldiers in increasing numbers are seeking to form official support organizations to help negotiate the unique challenges they face.  âItâs been liberating, being able to be myself and not two separate people â one person at work and one at home,â said Sergeant Lahl, who serves as vice president of the group at Kirtland. âWeâre not just this nameless, faceless person anymore. Weâre a presence on the base.â  The group here has about 12 active-duty gay and lesbian members, along with dozens of veterans and civilians, and three straight airmen. In its first year, membership has increased more than fivefold. The base employs about 20,000 people, including more than 3,200 active-duty service members.  Each month the support group meets to socialize and discuss a variety of issues, counseling airmen who have not yet come out and helping gay service members who want to advance in their military careers.  âAs our group gets bigger, the hope is that it normalizes the LGBT folks in the military,â said Capt. Greg Moran, the groupâs president, recalling how in years past, gay service members like him had to seek support surreptitiously.  While the Kirtland group is thought to be the only one in the Air Force, according to an Air Force spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Laurel Tingley, similar organizations have formed in the Navy.  Last year, Petty Officer Second Class Ann Foster started the first chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Supporting Sailors, or Glass, at Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois, the Navyâs largest training facility. She said she was moved to form the organization after watching a fellow lesbian sailor struggle to support her spouse and children without the same military benefits given to straight families. The baseâs commanders threw their support behind the idea, she said, swiftly approving bylaws and a charter.  Within the last few months, chapters have formed on three Navy ships and one additional base, Petty Officer Foster said, and 15 more are in the process of seeking charters.  Petty Officer Foster, 27, attributed the spread of the groups to a new generation of junior enlisted sailors, who grew up accustomed to having openly gay friends and family and for whom the âdonât ask, donât tellâ policy seemed obsolete. A similar gay-straight support club for midshipmen and military cadets, called Spectrum, has been started at the Naval and Air Force Academies and at West Point.  âThey donât have that innate fear that people who had been in the Navy for longer periods of time and who served under âdonât ask, donât tellâ have,â she said. âBy the time I started Glass, there were people coming out of boot camp who had never actually served under it.â  Nonetheless, Petty Officer Foster noted that there were still Navy commanders who were uneasy about the groups forming under their watch. And at least for now, the organizations appear to be limited, in terms of active-duty service members, to the Navy and the Air Force.
Two years after the repeal of âdonât ask, donât tell,â support groups for gay men and lesbians are being formed at military bases around the country.