Congress Compromises on NDAA, but Fails to Fully Address Woke Influence in the Military

In a final compromise on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress has made a significant move to limit the Pentagon's authority to require the use of personal pronouns in the ranks and official military records.

The compromise reached by Congress allows the Pentagon to no longer mandate or prohibit the use of personal pronouns by troops or Department of Defense employees in official military documents. The bill's conference report explicitly states that the Secretary of Defense is prohibited from requiring or prohibiting the identification of gender or personal pronouns in any official correspondence of the Department.

Despite the efforts of Republican Party leadership to remove gender ideology from the U.S. military entirely, an amendment to the NDAA for fiscal year 2024 clarified that the Secretary of Defense cannot prohibit the listing of preferred gender pronouns in official communications.

While the compromise on the NDAA is expected to be signed into law, the final bill also removed an amendment introduced by the House aimed at preventing the use of taxpayer funding to cover the cost of military members traveling for abortion services or transgender treatments.

The House's version of the NDAA bill, passed in July, aimed to reverse the Biden administration's abortion policy and restrict military insurance from covering the expenses of gender-transition hormone treatments and transgender surgeries. However, Senate Republicans did not include similar amendments in their version of the NDAA for fiscal year 2024.