The United States Navy has revealed that it accepted a “drag queen influencer” to get new recruits to enlist in the service.
QUICK FACTS:
- The U.S. Navy claims it hired a “drag queen influencer” to recruit young new candidates.
- Drag influencer Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, otherwise known as “Harpy Daniels,” announced in November 2022 that he was the Navy’s “Digital Ambassador.”
- According to a Navy spokesperson, the ambassador initiative that Kelley participated in ran from October 2022 to March 2023 and was “designed to explore the digital environment to reach a wide range of potential candidates.”
- “From joining to 2016 and being able to share my drag experience on my off time with my fellow sailors has been a blessing,” Kelley wrote about the ordeal. “This experience has brought me so much strength, courage and ambition to continue being an advocate and representation of queer sailors!”
FLORIDA SENATOR MARCO RUBIO (R) ON THE “WOKE” MILITARY:
“Biden has turned our military into a woke social experiment,” Rubio said. “It is a stupid way to go about protecting our nation. We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter threats like China, Russia, and North Korea and less time thinking about pronouns.”
BACKGROUND:
- Despite its efforts to boost recruitment by lowering standards, the U.S. military struggled to meet its goals in 2022.
- According to the Department of Defense, the Army saw a significant drop in recruiting, while the other branches just met their goals for the fiscal year ending September 30.
- Military expert Thomas Spoehr, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, warned that policy changes implemented by the military to attract more recruits could potentially negatively impact readiness.
- “By reducing certain standards, the military and the administration are trying to overcome the greatest recruiting challenge they have ever faced,” Spoehr said.
- In June 2022, video footage from a pronoun instructional video produced by the Navy went viral due to its progressive take on language in the workplace.
- The footage revealed a lesson teaching sailors how to use “right” pronouns to “affirm” someone’s gender identity.
- Sailors were also encouraged to include pronouns in emails and when introducing themselves as a way of diminishing the risk of misgendering someone.
