JD Smith is a pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 assumed by 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, an active duty officer United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

, during his campaign to end the discrimination against lesbian, gay and bisexuals against serving openly in the United States military.

Using social networking tools such as Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

, he organized LGBT

LGBT

LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 active-duty military personnel into an underground association OutServe

OutServe

OutServe is an underground network of GLB actively-serving military personnel, which launched publicly on 26 July 2010. It is co-directed by a 2009 graduate of the US Air Force Academy, Josh Seefried and Ty Walrod...

. To preclude outing

Outing

Outing is the act of disclosing a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person's true sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. Outing gives rise to issues of privacy, choice, hypocrisy, and harm in addition to sparking debate on what constitutes common good in efforts...

 himself as gay while serving on active duty in the Air Force, a violation of the don't ask, don't tell

Don't ask, don't tell

"Don't ask, don't tell" was the official United States policy on homosexuals serving in the military from December 21, 1993 to September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while...

 policy for which he could have been prosecuted and discharged, he assumed the leadership role and interfaced with the media and officials in the Pentagon and the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

using only his pseudonym.