Zoe Dunning, a Navy vessel commander, announced she was lesbian after another service member announced they were homosexual as well, leading to Dunning being recommended for honorable discharge.
In the Navy, the Coast Guard, the NOAA Corps, and the Public Health Service Corps, commander (abbreviated "CDR") is a senior-grade officer rank, with the pay grade of O-5. A commander in the Navy may command a frigate, destroyer, submarine, aviation squadron or small shore activity, or may serve on a staff afloat or ashore (typically as an action officer or as an executive officer to a flag officer or general officer), or a larger vessel afloat (as either a department head or executive officer). An officer in the rank of commander who commands a vessel may also be referred to as "captain" as a courtesy title, or informally referred to as "skipper." Meinhold acknowledged his gay status on ABC's World News Tonight on May 19, 1992. In January 1993, while a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, she announced her homosexuality at a rally in support of Petty Officer Keith Meinhold, saying, "I am both a naval officer and a lesbian, and I refuse to live a lie anymore." On June 10, 1993, a three-member Navy administrative board recommended that she be honorably discharged despite arguments that the action violated a federal judge's ruling the previous winter. 
