President Trump cancels Navy orders to make Navy Seals language "gender neutral".

President Donald Trump. 

 President Donald Trump has vowed to reverse an order that will make Navy Seals language "gender neutral". Politico. First reported by American Military News, the Navy was going to change the language of their ethos removing terms like "man" and "brotherhood". The Navy Seals were opened to women, along with all combat arms, in 2015 under Barack Obama, though no woman has qualified for the elite unit since then. Trump said on twitter that the order was ridiculous and would be overturned immediately. 

The American Military News post that broke the story can be found here. 

View this post on Instagram

What a joke. Note the names that signed off at the bottom. Adm. Colin Green (part of the hierarchy that tried to use the system to put me away)~ let’s remove all male pronouns & BROTHERHOOD from the SEAL ethos 🔱 • • To be honest I thought the ethos was always BS. Now I know it is. A creed or ethos is supposed to be written in stone, obviously ours is not and will sway to whatever political agenda is being put out 🇺🇸 #forgmanfriday

A post shared by SOC (Ret) SEAL Eddie Gallagher (@eddie_gallagher) on Sep 25, 2020 at 3:44pm PDT

 

I will be overturning this ridiculous order immediately! https://t.co/sFIX5Y667v

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2020

My Comment:

Another case of political correctness gone amok. The idea that the military's language should be gender neutral is just silly. The Navy Seals is currently a male-only organization and I doubt that is going to change anytime soon. Though combat arms is now open to women, there is almost no chance that women will be able to pass the rigorous training regimen that the Seals have to go through. The vast majority of men aren't able to as well. Even if there was a point to be made here, it's a moot one as a woman isn't going to become a Navy Seal anytime soon, unless they radically lower the standards of the unit. 

I'd also say that attacking the concept of "brotherhood" itself is not going to be seen as just political correctness gone mad. It's going to be seen as a direct attack on the culture of the military and the Navy Seals. Brotherhood is huge for them and it's about the kind of bonds that people only forge in combat. 

And I'd argue that brotherhood is already gender-neutral. There is nothing saying that a woman who fights and dies by your side isn't your brother as well. Brotherhood is about warrior culture, not what is between a person's legs. 

I'd say that President Trump is right to do this and not just for the obvious political gains. He needs the support of the military and he has it from the Navy Seals. Not only did he stick up for Eddie Gallagher he had been pretty supportive of the unit and has defended them from the brass. The Navy Seals have returned that loyalty with loyalty of their own. The value of that doesn't need to be stated as it's obvious.     

I also think it's more than time to push back about this kind of thing. Like President Trump's moves against Critical Race Theory, attacking this kind of political correctness is long overdue. There is no reason to change the language for an imaginary person who might be offended. If someone can make it through the Navy Seals training then we can have a discussion about it, but until that happens this was just pointless.