Military Could Hit Troops With Courts-Martial For Refusing To Use Preferred Pronouns, Experts Say

The military could seek to formally punish service members for refusing to use another service member's preferred pronouns under existing policy, according to military experts.

A 2020 Equal Opportunity law opened the door for commanders to subject someone who refuses to affirm a transgender servicemember's so-called gender identity to the Uniform Code of Military Justice for charges related to harassment, Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The military "Is right to want to protect the rights and welfare of its transgender service members. But it owes the same protection to those who share a different perspective on the issue, especially when that perspective is a deep-seated expression of personal conscience," Wheatley told the DCNF. None of the military's rules explicitly prohibit so-called "Misgendering," when someone uses pronouns to describe a transgender person which do not correspond to the person's new gender identity, Wheatley explained.

Existing guidance implies that using pronouns rejected by another person violates Military Equal Opportunity regulations against sex-based harassment and discrimination.

"I knew, given the cultural gap between the civilian world and the military, the issue would be overlooked as it concerned service members. So, I got to work," he told the DCNF. In a peer reviewed article recently published in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, Wheatley argued that, despite the existing EO policy, Articles 133 and 134 of the UCMJ are not strong enough to prosecute troops for spurning another's preferred pronouns.

"The military policy and legal infrastructure clearly exist to wage war on Americans with deeply-held traditional beliefs about man and woman," William Thibeau, director of the Claremont Institute's American Military Project, told the DCNF. Wheatley's article "Should be a red flag to policy makers and elected officials to end this tyranny of liberalism before it is formally levied against American Soldiers preferring to live in reality."

The experts advocated stronger measures too, including decriminalizing unspecified MEO violations and to narrow its scope so that it only applies to activities a servicemember performs while on normal duty hours or contributing to an official military mission.

https://dailycaller.com/2024/04/21/military-could-hit-troops-with-court-martials-for-refusing-to-use-preferred-pronouns-experts-say/