It was a rough summer for drag queens, with uproars over public library story hours and bruising boycotts against Jack Daniel’s for promoting drag shows in its advertisements routinely making news.
Meanwhile, conservative across the country, as they prepared to vote in 2022 midterms, were expressing discomfort—and for some alarm—over what many saw as a seemingly-pugilistic promotion of transgender and LGBTQ+ rights, vowing to restore “normalcy,” if possible, with their ballots.
It was also a rough year for military recruiting. Of three of the U.S. military’s largest branches, only the Air Force met its 2022 recruiting goal. The Army missed by 15,000 and the Navy fell shy even after lowering its quota, increasing its enlistment age to 41, and relaxing other standards.
So when the Navy in October chose to promote a sailor who weekends as a drag queen as one of its social media “digital ambassadors” as part of its recruitment strategy, many questioned how the sea service—so reliant on signal intelligence—didn’t see all the blinking red lights, or hear all the bells, all the whistles, all warning this just might not be a good marketing idea.
As things turned out, the Navy did, in fact succeed in making Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley the face of a well-publicized campaign.
But instead of promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as a recruiting tool, as the Navy apparently intended, YN2 Kelley became Congressional Republicans’ favorite poster prop in arguing that his celebration is why many young Americans—especially those among conservative constituencies—are turning away.
Called Onto Congressional Carpet
During a March hearing before the House Armed Services Committee Military Personnel Subcommittee, Chair Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a Navy veteran, said when asked why a sailor who sidelines as a drag queen was used in a recruitment marketing program, the Navy’s response was that the “digital ambassador” program didn’t exist.
“We are facing a historic recruitment crisis and instead of focusing efforts on strengthening our force, the Biden administration is forcing ‘wokeness’ on our service members,” the congressman said. “Navy leadership knew this was a ridiculous and embarrassing stunt, and that is why they initially denied involvement with the program.”
In a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Banks and Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) demanded to know why the Navy “incomprehensibly believed that this ‘woke’ campaign should become the defining face of the service” and warned that “perception is driving reality, and both current and former service members are alarmed at a culture putting ‘wokeness’ before training and combat effectiveness.”
Banks and Alford requested that DOD provide “instructions that govern performing in or authorizing drag shows” and “any rules and regulations for service members engaging in such activity while actively serving in the armed forces.”
In a May 3 letter to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Budd (R-N.C.) requested “more information regarding the Navy’s use of … a TikTok drag queen to help reach potential recruits on social media.”
Rubio and Budd also chastised the Navy for “the promotion of a banned app” in its digital ambassador TikTok videos than ran until April. The “No TikTok on Government Devices Act” was signed into law Dec. 29, 2022.
The senators expressed concern regarding “behavior that many deem inappropriate in a professional workplace” and could also potentially “push misinformation or narratives favoring the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
“Where does the Navy draw the line on promotion of the personal activities of its influencers?” Rubio and Budd ask. “Would the Navy enlist burlesque dancers or exotic dancers to reach possible recruits?”
The Navy’s only response has been a blanket statement: “Much like the country we serve, our Navy is stronger when we draw upon our diverse resources, skills, capabilities and talents. We remain committed to an inclusive environment.”
But the pressure could be forcing changes in the Department of Defense (DOD) and within the individual branches, the conservative Heritage Foundation Center for National Defense Director Thomas Spoehr told The Epoch Times.
“Just the other day, Lloyd Austin decreed there would be no more drag queen shows on military installations. That came as a surprise to me, I thought they were heading down the path that we’re going to have drag queen story hour at the installation library.”
‘In-Service Transitions’
During an October Heritage Foundation forum, a National Independent Panel on military service and readiness, chaired by Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) and featuring former Trump administration National Security Adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, took aim “at the politicization and the progressive policies that civilian officials in the [Biden] administration are imposing on the military.”
Those policies were initiated by a series of Biden executive orders, most notably two that revoked former President Donald Trump’s September 2022 order restricting DEI-related training in the military and banning transgender people from enlisting.
The revised policies restored the DOD’s 2016 policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or an individual’s identification as transgender.
In April 2021, the DOD followed with the 22-page Instruction 1300.28 that outlined rules for “in-service transition for transgender service members.”
The instruction states the DOD and the branches “will institute policies to provide service members a process by which they may transition gender while serving. These policies are based on the conclusion that open service by transgender persons who are subject to the same high standards and procedures as other Service members with regard to medical fitness for duty, physical fitness, uniform and grooming standards, deployability, and retention is consistent with military service and readiness.”
To qualify for “transition,” an active-duty service member must be diagnosed with “gender dysphoria,” which is a mental health condition in which people believe their biological sex and gender identity do not match.
“Gender transition begins when a service member receives a diagnosis from a military medical provider indicating that gender transition is medically necessary, and then completes the medical care identified or approved by a military mental health or medical provider in a documented treatment plan as necessary to achieve stability in the self-identified gender,” the DOD instruction states.
None of This Makes Sense
None of this makes sense, the Heritage Foundation panel said.
“Allowing individuals suffering from gender dysphoria—proven to be medically pre-disposed to severe anxiety and who attempt suicide at rates 10 times the general population—to enter service with no regard for consequences was reckless. It may have satisfied a campaign promise but at the expense of reduced military readiness,” the panel said.
A 2016 RAND Corp. analysis titled “Assessing the Implications of Allowing Transgender Personnel to Serve Openly” estimated there were about 2,450 transgenders in the 1.4 million active-duty force.
Of those, relatively few will seek to “transition,” RAND surmised, estimating that “each year, between 29 and 129 service members in the active component will seek transition-related care that could disrupt their ability to deploy.”
It projected health care costs for transgenders to amount to an additional $2.4 million to $8.4 million annually.
And still, none of this makes sense as a recruiting angle, Waltz told The Epoch Times. “I would love for them to present me data that shows there is a large body of transgender soldiers out there who want to join so much. Where is their data that documents that?”
Spoehr, a former Army Lieutenant General, said the military has been in the “leading bastion of societal change” since before President Harry Truman issued an executive order de-segregating the armed forces in 1948.
“Sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. Sometimes, they get ahead of society in implementing programs” before generally accepted, he said.
But that’s what’s happening here, Spoehr said. In this case, “clearly” DEI and transgender policies are “catering to political factions,” he said.
‘Bluejacket Of The Year’
YN2 Kelley is an openly gay weekend drag queen but he is not transgender. He was also a bit of a 7th Fleet celebrity for his drag performances as “Harpy Daniels” while deployed as an administrative assistant for a squadron aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, as recounted in a 2018 Military Times article.
Kelley was later celebrated in a June 2020 LGBT Pride Month Profile posted by the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Virginia.
Both items note Kelley was performing as “Harpy Daniels” before he joined the Navy in 2016 and that his superiors have universally lauded his professionalism—he was named ‘Bluejacket of the Year’ by his former squadron, has earned a Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and is a respected petty officer among shipmates.
A sailor who is a drag queen on liberty gets shrugs from many Navy veterans, usually followed with a tale that’ll shocktop that. But building a military recruiting campaign around one has raised eyebrows.
The Navy League, Naval Reserve Association, and Naval Order of the United States (NOUS) are among advocacy groups that opted not to discuss YN2 Kelley with The Epoch Times. But several Navy veterans offered personal insight.
“I don’t mind that we have a petty officer who makes extra money as a drag queen on weekends,” said retired Navy Capt. Frederick J. Passman, Continental Commander of NOUS.
“That shouldn’t be the highlight,” Passman said, stressing he was not speaking on behalf of the “apolitical and nonpartisan” NOUS.
Kelley was selected as a digital ambassador because “he’s an outstanding petty officer with a good track record. If he can inspire others to come aboard, everything else is irrelevant,” Passman said.
That being said, he added: “No need to market to people who want to be drag queens, few of which want to be in the military anyway. I’m not faulting or judging them, but if my hobbies are not consistent with my service, either find a new hobby or new service.”
Paul Gagne of the Massachusetts NOUS, “an old chief raised by old chiefs,” agreed.
“If you are going to recruit, don’t target trannies and drag queens or whatever they want to be called,” he said. “The reality is, the people you need to recruit are going to turn away. Bud Light made the same mistake.”
Spoehr said that while the marketing misfire vexes sailors the most, it reflects also on the other services.
“I’m kind of, ‘If you are in your house and wherever, it’s your business.’ I’m generally okay with that,” he said. “But don’t bring it into the classrooms, don’t symbolize the service [with it], don’t [make] it be part of marketing.”
Target ‘The Three Types’
Passman said the Navy has a great story to tell and doesn’t need to target fringe communities to fill its ranks.
The mission is to “continue to move towards the best use of talent. I think the focus should be on opportunities for personal and professional growth. There is no better place to really come into yourself than service to your country,” he said.
“It gives them an opportunity to level the playing field,” Passman continued, “and understand what it means to be part of something greater than themselves.”
“Stick to your demographic,” Gagne said. “Don’t spend time and money appealing to 2-percent of your target demographic. You can’t have recruiting ads that are inclusive when you are targeting 2-percent of the population instead of the 98 percent that have make your ranks for 200 years.”
There are three types of people who “historically join the Navy,” he said, and that’s where the future Navy should be built.
They are: “People who want college money; people who want to get out of their [bad] situations, out of the hood or backwaters of Arkansas; and people who do it out of a sense of duty. You have to appeal to the more traditional, more conservative demographic [to recruit the latter].”
Gagne said there was a fourth category when he joined the Navy in 1988 that disappeared over time. “People with criminal convictions, trying to avoid jail or prison. That is another thing they should bring back,” he said.
The military, and the Navy in particular, “is either your cup of tea or it is not,” Passman said. But requiring all 18-19 year olds to do “two years of service for the nation, not necessarily in the military,” would be a service to them as well.
He recalled that former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) “absolutely had a great plan” unveiled during his 1988 Democratic presidential run. The plan died with his campaign in the Donna Rice scandal.
Civics must again be a public education emphasis, Passman said.
“We don’t teach citizenship anymore. We don’t teach them how to be citizens greater than themselves. We don’t teach our children the importance of being a citizen of a nation. I’m not surprised when they turn 18-19 that joining the military is not on their radar.”
Keep it simple and they will come, Passman said.
“Sell the ability to learn things that they wouldn’t be able to do anywhere else, including leadership and technical skills, world travel that is unique in the Navy,” he said, “not rainbow coalition stuff.”
