The most essential purpose of a military force is to defend its nation, people, and way of life. As many have thoroughly noted, recent years brought seismic social transformation that reordered the U.S. military’s institutional loves from constitutionalism, ordered liberty, and founding principles to an affection for the most radical elements of progressive political doctrines.
In my 20-year military career, I watched the force transform from a place where the traditional family was a sacred pillar to one where service members risk investigation for defending the most basic ontological values. Thus it was music to my ears when then-Secretary of Defense—now, Secretary of War—Pete Hegseth proclaimed that “DEI is dead at DOD.” Yet despite his best efforts, that statement is contested in action and deed by social insurgents who remain firmly embedded up to the highest levels of Pentagon management.
It’s widely reported that numerous offices dedicated to DEI initiatives were simply rebranded. Even in commands that truly shuttered these precincts of political commissar, the ideology remains represented by many uniformed military and civilian employees. Closing the church doesn’t automatically de-convert its members. That reality presented itself again recently in a subtle—but strategic—choice of terminology contained within a recent War Department policy update.
The @DeptofWar is still including Terms of Transgender Ideology in recent policy updates.
— Chase Spears (@DrChaseSpears) November 14, 2025
Take DOD INSTRUCTION 1327.06: MILITARY LEAVE, LIBERTY, AND ADMINISTRATIVE ABSENCE for instance.
This update made in August, 2025 (7 months into the new administration) refers to… pic.twitter.com/hA1AMp2Rvx
The Department of Defense updated DOD Instruction 1327.06: Military Leave, Liberty, and Administrative Absence in August, adding language referring to “non-birth” parents (see above X post). This update—made seven months into the second Trump administration—matters because it makes military policy a vehicle to legitimize activist language of the so-called "transgender" movement.
It was well understood when I joined the military that mothers birth children, and fathers don’t. Husband and wife changed to spouse when former President Obama overturned ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ The purpose was to proffer institutional legitimacy to natural or adoptive parents choosing homosexual lifestyles. The Biden administration took this further in forcing the transgender movement onto the military. Culturally-Marxist terms like ‘birthing’ and ‘non-birthing’ people and parents were adopted across governmental agencies as so-called ‘progress’ flags flew alongside the stars and stripes at federal facilities. This cultural revolution forced its way into the armed forces as well.
Some have questioned why I draw attention to what might appear to be a small matter of a few words among thousands in a single document. The answer is that institutional language matters, as it conveys values and teaches people how to think. If you can reduce a father to a ‘non-birth’ parent, and raise gay relationships to be perceived on par with holy matrimony, you undermine the most basic foundation upon which our society is built. A military that denies reality cannot know what is worth defending.
The language of the transgender cult is one of dark fantasy that denies ladies the Biblical dignity of representing the glory of man (See 1st Corinthians 11:17). It reduces feminine to a stereotype, and woman to a pejorative ‘cis’ identity, “chest feeder,” “menstruating person,” or “birthing person.” Men are dismissed as “non-birthers.” Leaving old school misogyny behind, the revolutionary architects of such language broadcast a total contempt for humanity, and women in particular—believing their existence so cheap that misguided and depraved men can put the role on like a suit. If you can get the military to follow such a perverse line of thinking, you can condition its members to merely follow whatever orders are given with total disregard for whether they are in accordance with defending, preserving, protecting, and conserving the United States of America.
When I initially brought this up in social media posting (see above; I also shared it on LinkedIn), some replied that non-birth parent is a reference to adoptive parents. This is false. Adoption and adoptive parents are referenced separately in the regulation a total of 64 times, with a standalone section about adoption on page 30. The inclusion of ‘non-birth parents’ as a category is a separate matter entirely.
In addition, the previous version (.PFD) of the Defense Department’s leave instruction did not contain a single reference to “non-birth” parents. It referred to birthing as an event exclusive to women.
This reality-based version of the War Department’s leave policy was implemented on January 15, 2021, during the Biden administration. It took until 2025 for the military to insert the transgendered language, in direct violation of President Trump’s Executive Order 14168—Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, Executive Order 14185—Restoring America's Fighting Force, and the January 29, 2025 Secretary of Defense Memorandum: Restoring America’s Fighting Force.
The Under Secretary of War for Personnel and Readiness was tasked to execute these orders across the War Department. But that office, led by Anthony Tata, inserted and published transgendered language into the new leave policy. This is the same office responsible for reintegrating military members kicked out by the Biden administration through unlawful COVID policies. It has taken 11 months to reinstate a total of four military service members of the over 8,000 forced out.
The problem of senior War Department lieutenants working to thwart the agenda that Americans voted for in November 2024 goes deeper. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll recently told Politico’s White House bureau chief, Dasha Burns, that he sees no difference between men and women in the U.S. Army’s crucible known as Ranger School. “I probably watched 100 soldiers walk by and could not tell you gender,” he said of a recent visit to a Ranger School training site. This comes despite years’ worth of well-sourced reporting that standards were modified for women being force integrated into the extremely physically-challenging course. This was done by order of the Obama administration for purposes of social engineering. Proof of the detrimental impact this has on warfighting readiness continues to be dismissed by ideologically-driven power brokers across the U.S. military complex.
I appreciate that War Secretary Pete Hegseth says the military is done with the woke agenda. But a concerning number of his subordinates and policy writers beg to differ. Something serious must be done to fight the deeply-entrenched, rebellious military culture ensconced during the Obama and Biden eras. A force that denies reality and resists legitimate rule constitutes—as many of our ancestors warned—a threat to liberty.
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