Air Force backtracks Hegseth pronoun ban after realizing it violates Biden law
Air Force backtracks Hegseth pronoun ban after realizing it violates Biden law
Show Caption
Hide Caption
US Defense Secretary, Japanese Prime Minister visit Iwo Jima memorial
In his first trip to Japan, U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth visited Iwo Jima and attended a memorial with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
The Air Force walked back a Trump administration ban on pronouns in its official communications after realizing it ran afoul of a Biden-era defense policy bill that bars the Pentagon from establishing any pronoun policies.
In a memo dated last Wednesday, Gwendolyn DeFilippi, the Air Force's acting assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, said the ban on preferred pronouns was "rescinded."
The ban, announced in an early February memo from DeFilippi, ordered the Air Force to "immediately" stop using "preferred pronouns" in any official communications, including "email signature blocks, memoranda, letters, papers, social media, official websites" and other official correspondence.
The Air Force said this week that it changed course after realizing the pronoun ban was in violation of the 2024 annual defense policy bill, which bans the Defense Department from making any pronoun policy – whether for or against their official use.
"The Department of the Air Force updated the guidance to comply with federal law after it was brought to our attention the policy was not in line with the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act," a spokesperson for the Air Force said.
The bill, which sets down the official policy outlining how each year's military budget will be put to use, prohibits the military from either requiring or barring the "identification of gender or personal pronouns in official correspondence."
What the Trump administration means for you: Sign up for USA TODAY's On Politics newsletter.
More: 'Appalled': Pentagon restores web pages on Navajo code talkers, Jackie Robinson
In late January, federal employees from multiple departments received emails from the Trump administration ordering them to scrub pronouns from their email signatures.
Hegseth wages anti-DEI campaign
The ban on pronouns came amid Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's sweeping push to expunge all diversity, equity and inclusion policies from the military.
Hegseth also canceled identity months, like Black History Month, from Pentagon policy and ordered hundreds of books pulled from the shelves of libraries at military schools and the Naval Academy Library.
In a move widely condemned by Democratic lawmakers and LGBTQ advocates, the Trump administration also banned transgender people from enlisting in the military.
The Department was also forced to backtrack after an order from Hegseth to delete all DEI-related content from official websites provoked outrage. The directive saw pages covering topics from Jackie Robinson to the Navajo Code Talkers to the Tuskegee Airmen taken down, with "dei" appearing in their URLs. After the backlash, some were reinstated, but many remain down.
'They don't seem to care if it's legal'
Alex Wagner, a former assistant secretary of the Air Force, said the backtrack meant the military under Hegseth, "finally let the lawyers into some of their decision making."
In late 2021, the Air Force updated its official style guide – called the Tongue and Quill – to allow its members to "include pronouns in their signature block," according to an archived screenshot of the announcement. The original link has now been taken down.
Wagner said pronoun policy was barely an "afterthought" during his time in Air Force leadership. Most of the concern about it came, not from the force, but from Republican lawmakers who "assumed this was an all-consuming exercise that took our focus off of warfighting, which it absolutely did not."
"This was a minor amendment to a writing style guide,' he said. "It never came up, except in preparation to testify before Congress."
Amid the department-wide push to wipe out DEI, the Pentagon under Hegseth was glossing over the legality of its actions, he said.
"They don't seem to care if it's legal or not and aren't really stopping to ask."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Republicans focus on trans athletes in their early attacks against Jon Ossoff in Georgia
In the early stages of the campaign, Republicans seeking to unseat Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff in one of the key races of the 2026 midterm elections are leaning heavily into attacks over transgender athletes in women's sports. Two GOP-aligned groups launched ads on the issue in recent weeks. And GOP Rep. Buddy Carter hit the airwaves with an ad prodding Ossoff on the issue soon after launching his campaign. Republican candidates and campaigns have frequently leaned on culture war issues in recent years as a way to excite the base and frame Democrats as out of touch, particularly in red-leaning states. And they're even more emboldened after President Donald Trump bombarded then-Vice President Kamala Harris with an onslaught of ads that attacked her support for transgender people during the 2024 election. But while Democrats are gearing up for a difficult re-election fight for Ossoff in a state Trump won narrowly in 2024, they think the issue will be drowned out by voters' concerns about the economy, particularly Trump's handling of it. Even so, it's an issue for which Democrats lack a consensus about how to respond to GOP broadsides, as prominent members of the party grapple with whether to embrace protecting the transgender community as part of their values, deflect the question, or come out against including transgender athletes in women's sports. Ossoff is the only Democratic incumbent defending a seat in a state Trump won last year, making him far-and-away the top target for Senate Republicans. Still, some Republicans admit that Ossoff will be difficult to beat, particularly now that Gov. Brian Kemp decided not to seek the seat. The early Republican criticism of Ossoff points to the Democratic senator's vote on legislation in February that would make it a Title IX violation (jeopardizing federal education funding) for states to allow transgender women and girls to participate in female sports. The bill failed to get the 60 votes it needed to advance in the Senate. One Nation, the nonprofit aligned with Senate Republicans' main super PAC, has spent at least $400,000 airing an ad reminiscent of a key tagline from one of Trump's anti-Harris ads from last year: 'Man-to-man defense isn't woke enough for Ossoff, he's playing for they/them.' Carter's opening salvo of ads included a spot touting the congressman's MAGA credentials while a person purporting to be a transgender woman holds sports trophies and stands in front of a transgender pride flag talking about how Ossoff has been an ally to the community. Asked about the GOP criticism of that vote, Ossoff campaign communications director Ellie Dougherty told NBC News in a statement that 'American parents don't need federal bureaucrats confirming our children's genitalia,' a reference to how a state might enforce the mandate in the Republican bill. Scott Paradise, who managed Republican Herschel Walker's losing Senate campaign in 2022, told NBC News that Ossoff's first Senate run in 2020 provided a 'perfect storm' that allowed Ossoff to position himself as a 'centrist' by narrowing his focus to 'bread-and-butter issues.' 'If he's talking about the economy or he's talking about moments where he has stood with the right — whether it's Middle East, to the extent he has on immigration — it's easier for him to muddy the waters. But this is such a black-and-white issue in a center-right state' that allows Republicans to try to frame him as out of step, Paradise said. Polling broadly shows the American public doesn't support transgender women playing in female sports. Last month's NBC News Stay Tuned Poll, powered by SurveyMonkey found that 75% opposed it and 25% supported it. Other national polling has found similar trends. That's one reason why Trump's campaign focused heavily on the issue in ads, arguing that Harris was outside the mainstream and pointing to her past support for gender-affirming treatments for prison inmates. After the election, Democrats have disagreed over whether the party's position on transgender rights, particularly in women's sports, cost them electorally. Asked about the attacks last month during an interview on "Political Breakfast," a podcast hosted by Georgia's public radio affiliate, Ossoff said the big early spending is a signal to him that "demonstrates the national GOP understands the strength that I'll be bringing to this re-election campaign." The Democrat called Republicans, particularly GOP political consultants, "obsessed and preoccupied with this issue." Thinking ahead about "top of mind" issues for voters in 2026, Ossoff added, will it be "whether or not federal bureaucrats are investigating the sexual biology of adolescent athletes? I don't think so," he added. Amy Morton, a Democratic strategist in Georgia, elaborated that she believes the midterms will instead be a "referendum on the economy" and Trump's handling of it, emphasizing the Democratic attacks on the GOP's broad policy bill that's working its way through Congress. "They're going to continue to lean into that issue because they don't want to talk about the issues that are really impacting Georgians," she said, adding, "They made a strategic decision to wrap their arms around Donald Trump so there won't be a degree of separation between his failure as an executive and their failure." A Democratic strategist who worked on Sen. Raphael Warnock's successful re-election in Georgia in 2022 added that, like their former boss, Ossoff's high-profile elections have helped to define him in the state, making them skeptical that a GOP attempt to brand him as extreme will stick. They added that while Warnock's 2022 Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, leaned heavily on social issues during his unsuccessful bid, Kemp won comfortably with a very different message on the same ballot, showing how a campaign can focus on the issues it wants and leave others to the side. "You saw Brian Kemp run an extremely disciplined race on the economy. You were hard-pressed to get Kemp on the record about abortion in 2022 — the man was laser-focused on small businesses, jobs and the economy. That was the consistent message you heard out of Brian Kemp. You compare that to Herschel Walker and, you can do the math: 300,000 votes," the Democrat said. But the economy was also a top issue in the 2024 election, and Trump and the Republican Party still managed to turn their attacks on trans issues into a memorable tagline that stuck with some voters. That's why one national Republican strategist told NBC News that the attack isn't a "replacement" for a cogent economic argument, but "part of the equation." 'It's an issue that obviously had a massive impact in 2024. The Trump campaign's 'Harris is for they/them' ad is one of the greatest ads of our generation in that it's so simple and was so effective,' the strategist said. Ads about transgender participants in women's sports can run "on top of: Oh, he also voted to help ensure that illegal immigrants get government-paid health care and he voted against the Laken Riley amendment in 2024 before it was convenient," the strategist added. While the transgender sports attacks are drawing headlines, both sides have been running ads focused on spending in Washington, too. Democrats have attacked the GOP's policy bill working its way through Washington, and Republicans hit Ossoff for backing former President Joe Biden's signature spending bill in 2022. Tharon Johnson, a Georgia Democratic strategist who worked for Biden's 2020 campaign in the state, agreed that Republicans are "going to be hard-pressed to make Jon Ossoff into this radical," in part because of his work both in office and on the campaign trail. And while he believes the situation Harris found herself in last year isn't the same one Ossoff finds himself in now, he said Democrats can still draw a lesson from it: "Respond sooner, and more effectively." So far, Ossoff's response has been to stay focused on the economy and try to frame the debate as about local control. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump backs arrest of California governor amid LA protest strains
US President Donald Trump said Monday it would be "great" if California Governor Gavin Newsom was arrested, in an extraordinary threat as the two men sparred over protests in Los Angeles. Republican Trump, 78, deployed the National Guard in America's second city on Saturday after clashes erupted over immigration raids -- but he did not seek the Democratic governor's consent, the first time a US president has taken such an action in 60 years. As temperatures rose, Newsom, 57, then dared Trump's border czar Tom Homan over the weekend to arrest him, after Homan said the governor and LA Mayor Karen Bass could face federal charges of trying to impede immigration agents. "I would do it if I were Tom. I think it's great," Trump told reporters when asked if Homan should arrest Newsom, as the Republican president arrived on his Marine One helicopter at the White House. "Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing." Trump said Newsom, who has been widely tipped as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, had "done a terrible job" in curbing the Los Angeles clashes. "Look, I like Gavin Newsom, he's a nice guy -- but he's grossly incompetent, everybody knows," Trump said. Trump later said that "I don't want a civil war," but that "civil war would happen if you left it to people like him." Newsom has bitterly accused Trump of manufacturing the crisis for political gain, saying that local law authorities could have handled the protests without the National Guard. On Sunday, he blasted border chief Homan, telling MSNBC: "Come after me, arrest me, let's just get it over with, tough guy." The Democrat then branded Trump as "dictatorial" later Monday after the Trump administration deployed 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles. dk/jgc
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Mass. labor groups rally against ICE arrest of California union leader
BOSTON — Unrest in California spurred by federal immigration enforcement raids has reached the East Coast, where hundreds of protesters gathered Monday in solidarity with their counterparts on the other side of the country. At a peaceful rally in front of Boston City Hall, members of SEIU and other unions condemned the Friday arrest of David Huerta, president of SEIU California, in Los Angeles. Huerta had been attending a protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids at a number of work sites in the area, which led to more than 100 arrests. 'Arresting a lawful resident without any due process should chill every American to the bone. It's a dangerous precedent,' said Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Chrissy Lynch. 'If David Huerta can be arrested for exercising his rights, who's next? Which one of us is next? Where does it end?' Huerta was one of at least 44 protesters to be arrested in California Friday. The following day, violent confrontations broke out between federal authorities and protesters, with law enforcement using tear gas and rubber bullets and protesters setting cars on fire. President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard, despite California Gov. Gavin Newsom's objections. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also threatened to mobilize active duty Marines, a threat he followed through with Monday afternoon, sending 700 Marines to Los Angeles, according to ABC News. 'Trump's threats to deploy the military against civilians on U.S. soil is illegal, unnecessary, unjust,' said ACLU of Massachusetts Executive Director Carol Rose at the rally, which took place before the news that the Marines were being sent to Los Angeles broke. 'No matter how much firepower the federal government threatens to wield, it will never be a match for people power,' Rose added. 'Democracy is not just a piece of paper. Democracy is workers and ordinary people showing up to protect one another and defend our collective rights, including the right to protest and dissent.' Barbara Roy of Marblehead attended the rally in Boston with her friend and neighbor, Mary Chalifour. Roy said she went to her first protest three months ago because of how upset she was by the actions of the Trump administration. Roy carried a sign bearing a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' She said 'justice' was what brought her to Monday's rally. 'Justice isn't being served,' she said. Boston has had its own confrontations with the Trump administration over its immigration policies. Mayor Michelle Wu was called to testify before Congress in March about the city's status as a so-called 'sanctuary city,' meaning local law enforcement does not cooperate with ICE on civil cases. More recently, Wu drew criticism from U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley, who released a video on social media last week saying the mayor was pushing 'false narratives' about federal immigration enforcement. Boston City Councilor Julia Mejia, who attended Monday's rally, acknowledged the city had already been targeted by the federal government but said the hundreds of protesters who showed up to City Hall showed the city's position. 'We're standing firm. We're ready for it,' Mejia said. 'We're signaling to the Trump administration, 'Don't mess with Boston.'' Huerta was arraigned in court in California at the same time as the rally Monday afternoon. He has been charged with conspiring to impede an officer, according to the Associated Press. 'It won't end well for Trump' if he does this amid LA protests, ex-GOP rep says Markey: Trump using National Guard in LA to distract from big cuts in 'Big Beautiful Bill' ICE deportation blocked by Boston judge: Migrants now in shipping container in Djibouti AG Andrea Joy Campbell: Know your rights when it comes to ICE (Viewpoint) Milford High student released from ICE detention: 'Nobody should be in here' Read the original article on MassLive.
