Or is it womyn? This is going to become a serious question. As they say, the military is a reflection of society. It is also a place for bureaucrats to experiment with social policies.

It is an easy place for the Commander-in-Chief to show off his bona fides. The members of senior leadership of the military are political appointees, and they are sworn to follow the orders given them. Why not implement sweeping changes on a population that can’t say no?

I can think of a couple reasons off hand. Morale is a big one. The battlespace is a stressful environment. There is constant pressure on troops to anticipate or respond to the enemy. Add on top of that the threat of a career ending off hand comment. Too many people think that it is just the military, and everyone barks orders at their lessers, and it just gets done. That could not be further from the truth. There are a multitude of avenues for a subordinate to report what they consider to be offensive. If an individual in a command structure is easily offended, the entire command may be labeled as toxic, and everyone at the top goes down. This can be done anonymously of course, via surveys and hidden interviews.

Another reason is the cost. Money is a fairly easy thing to quantify on its own, but when it flows into the military it gets fuzzy. Contract overruns are commonplace, and different piles of money get schmoozed around. Keeping track of it is nearly impossible. Now assume that you need different berthing for another gender or two on a destroyer, or some remote FOB. Are there also needs for different washrooms? I’m not sure how all of that gets addressed without some concessions that will not be cheap.

These concerns are really just a branch of the political correctness tree. Safe spaces and welcoming environments are  typically not part of an aggressive winning strategy.