Air Force Academy Says Non-Gendered Language Controversy is Overblown
Report: Instead of saying “you guys,” cadets are told to use gender-neutral terms like “team,” “squaddies,” “folks” and even “y’all.” … use “partner” rather than “boyfriend or girlfriend.’”
A few days ago, it was reported that the latest U.S. Air Force Academy diversity training program instructed cadets to address people in ways that “include all genders,” dropping the use of “boyfriend or girlfriend” and even “mom and dad.”
Diversity and inclusion (D&I) training at the Air Force Academy in Colorado includes instruction on how to “use inclusive language,” according to documents shared by Fox News Digital.
“Use words that include all genders,” the training material tells cadets, warning them to “ask” people what they “call themselves” rather than assuming.
Instead of saying “you guys,” cadets are told to use gender-neutral terms like “team,” “squaddies,” “folks” and even “y’all.”
“Some families are headed by single parents, grandparents, foster parents, two moms, two dads, etc.: consider ‘parent or caregiver’ instead of ‘mom and dad,’” the presentation states, telling cadets to “recognize diverse family formation.”
Equally, they are told to use “partner” rather than “boyfriend or girlfriend.’”
Here is the slide that is the focus of the report:
There are more elements to the training as well.
The diversity and inclusion (D&I) training also includes an exercise asking cadets to separate into small groups and write down as many “G-Animals,” or animals that start with the letter “G,” that they can think of in one minute’s time.
“What does this activity show us about the power of combining our diverse perspectives?” the activity asks. “If this were an operational USAF/USSF [United States Space Force] challenge (think COA [course of action] development) what risks might be present if we did not fully leverage the diversity of our group?”
The news engendered a great deal of criticism, mockery, and concern.
I wish our military would stop playing word games. Also I’d like them to focus on training future leaders of our military and country. I have a uncle who graduated from AFA in the 70s. I think he would be very upset about this.
— Daniel Hamm (@DanielH24688823) September 23, 2022
Idiotic. And dangerous.
“The United States Air Force Academy is training its cadets to ‘use inclusive language’ that BARS THEM FROM CALLING PEOPLE ‘TERRORISTS’ or using male and female identifiers.” https://t.co/nv3ThNnrdx
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 22, 2022
Cadets are telling me that they're being instructed to use "Parents/Caregivers/Guardians" rather than Mom and Dad at our Air Force Academy. Yet, leadership has testified that there's no pronoun policy in place.@LindseyGrahamSC, @RepGallagher & I are getting to the bottom of it. https://t.co/Uqv3DJtZGo
— Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) September 23, 2022
The Air Force Academy is pushing back on these reports, calling the overblown.
Air Force Academy officials say that’s simply not what’s happening, and that the wording on the slide in the employee seminar was taken out of context.
“The Air Force Academy does not prohibit the use of ‘Mom and Dad’ or other gender-specific terms,” according to the academy. “The slide in question was not intended to stand alone.”
The slide on “inclusive language” was meant to “demonstrate how respect for others should be used to build inclusive teams” and ultimately build better offensive and defensive units, said the Air Force Academy. “Until you know a person’s situation,” it counsels, “we should not make assumptions about them.”
The words it used to make such a point “began their evolution long before the current conversation took roots,” it said.
Overblown or not, it is quite clear that most Americans want their future military leaders to be focused on science, technology, and military tactics. Whatever time has been spent on this inanity would be better used focused on other subjects.
For example, I don’t think the Chinese are worrying about gender identity as much as technological development.
The rapid expansion of China’s fighter fleet has alarmed its rivals, but its most advanced jet, the J-20, isn’t too much of a concern, the top US Air Force officer in the Pacific said this week.
“It’s their most modern aircraft. We’ve had a limited opportunity to assess it. It seems OK,” Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, the head of Pacific Air Forces, said Monday at the Air, Space, and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
The J-20 was introduced in 2017 and is China’s first fifth-generation fighter. Like other Chinese military aircraft, it faces technological challenges, most notably underpowered engines.
Beijing, however, continues to develop the jet, making plans to add a better engine and sending it on longer-range operations.
“It’s not anything to lose a lot of sleep over, but they seem to be a building a lot of them, and certainly, we’re watching them closely and seeing how they develop and how they operate them,” Wilsbach told reporters.
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Comments
Traditionally you got teams by having a bunch of guys, tearing them down and then building them back up.
Suffering and enduring hardship while you strive toward a common goal, demonstrating your commitment, drive, and mutual looking out for one another?
Can’t have that, anymore.
Overblown? So now they are only partly pregnant?
We are doomed to have a military equal to the most mediocre army in the world.
Exactly as the Marxists want.
The suggestions “Aren’t meant to stand alone” is the thought of the high muckety mucks.
The people presenting the slides? “This is gospel and you must follow it or be punished.”
“overblown” what trash. Only means they got caught. Every branch of the military needs an enima across the officer ranks.
That was my first assessment.
“Out of context” is a form of projection. Remember that they took everything, repeat, everything Pres. Trump said out of context, and persecuted him about it.
When leftists get caught doing what they do best (destroy America), they claim context, but never supply the necessary context, and when they do, it never supports their whining.
The Potemkin village of DIE must be razed to the ground.
Indeed. The Left has a collective glass jaw if it ever comes to a straight out direct confrontation. Verbal or otherwise. They shriek in terror over anyone opposing them who won’t be intimidated. That weakness is ‘the way in’ when the time comes.
When did “You guys” get to be gendered? That was never the case as far as I recall. Everyone I know uses it to mean everyone in the group you are addressing. If you are triggered by “You guys” you are acting like an idiot.
Or a hypersensitive snowflake Democrat socialist.
Yes, that is very redundant…
“The United States Air Force Academy is training its cadets to ‘use inclusive language’ that BARS THEM FROM CALLING PEOPLE ‘TERRORISTS’”
So, then, in the meanwhile, are we back to “ragheads?”
Or the ever-popular “sand niggers?”
Do DIs still get to call recruits “maggots,” or is it now “larva?”
Drop, and give me some racist integer.
It has always been standard social procedure during conversation or introductions, for the person being spoken to to decide if they want the person speaking to them to know their parent situation, or if they wanted to include the other party in their private sex life upon introduction by revealing if they are homosexual or whatever sexual. It is FAR MORE rude to assume that a man may not want to be referred to as a man or a woman an woman, etc. Being ‘normal” should be the least offensive option in any social setting and the fact that they’re teaching people to be completely awkward in conversation, puts all these impressionable young people at a disadvantage in any setting, except maybe a college campus these days. And college campuses should be made to feel ridiculous like they actually are, for teaching this utter nonsense to our next generation.
Excellent, excellent point there. Thank you.
And it is exceptionally more rude (and tyrannical) to insist that people recognize your gender dysphoria by changing the language and legislating to enforce that with fines, like in Canada.
I wonder how they beat us to this?
Why are they concerned about inclusive language anyway? To confront combatants on the battlefield?
Eighth-generation warfare.
For the same reason gays and lesbians care about abortion?
What’s overblown is their denial that they’re fullblown woke.
When this came out a few days ago, I spread the word to my net of acquaintances which includes pretty much all veterans. The general reaction included that their kids/grandkids of military age were going to be advised NOT to enlist.
Subotai Bahadur
I have done the same for a couple of grands and one of their friends.
Sadly, I believe this might be part of the design by the left.
Won’t it be confusing if Air Force officers use a different phonetic alphabet than the rest of the military? At least for the letter P, and possibly C, J, M, O, R, and V as well.
Really? Then by all means explain in what context it was presented and how that is part of the curriculum at the USAF Academy.
Then by all means, show us the rest of the presentation, which we must assume is approved by the USAF.
Y’all? Y’ALL??? That’s a southern expression, popularized by Racist Slave-owning Democrat Slave-owning Racist Democrats. It cannot be OK to say that — it benefited from slavery, just like Cambridge and Harvard and Barack Obama, Senior.
Better to say ‘Um gawa, bwana’
Agree ” overblown” means they got caught
I’m going to have to ask Kamala what “overblown” means. She’s the expert.
Mom and Dad a problem? Try sperm donor and egg layer (or incubator).
Using DIE to make our country’s military, and more importantly, military superiority, DIE.
On 3 JUL 72, I was sworn in as a cadet in the USAFA Class of ’76. Several weeks later at the end of Basic, parents came to Parents Weekend to visit us, the Academy, etc. The AOC gave his standard, “You gave us boys, we give you back men” spiel. (The Class of 76 was the last class through an all-male Academy – when the next class were seniors / Firsties, women were in the frosh/Doolie class.) I guess nowadays that speil would be: “You gave us young men and women, we give you back kindergartners who have been instructed how to refer to their parents.” It’s a disgrace. NONE of my squadronmates-classmates wanted to send their own kids to USAFA. It’s that bad. Close it down. Close them all down. They serve no purpose in helping the military to do other than get their pronouns right, sail ships into each other and lose wars. ROTC kids can do that at lower expense.