Air Force Academy Superintendent Stumped on Transgender Labels – “I’m not really sure”
Superintendent of the Air Force Academy cannot define “demigender” or “agender” despite his Academy cadets being eligible to apply for a fellowship accepting such students
As we have reported on several times, Critical Race Theory, transgender orthodoxy, and all things “woke” have at least established a “beachhead” at the service academies. See, for example, our reporting here: Our Study: Critical Race Theories Have “Established a Beachhead at the Military Service Academies” and here: West Point Alum Warns the School is Going Woke.
Earlier this week, in the latest installment of “transgender infiltration into the service academies,” the Superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy, Lieutenant General Richard M. Clark, was unable to explain, to Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) at a House Armed Services Committee hearing, the meaning of two transgender terms listed in eligibility guidelines for a fellowship that’s open to Air Force Academy cadets.
From Congressman Gaetz’s press release on the exchange, in which General Clark was unable to accurately define the terms “demigender” and “agender”:
During today’s House Armed Services Committee (HASC) hearing on “Admissions, Curriculum, and Diversity of Thought at the Military Service Academies,” the United States Air Force Academy Superintendent, Lieutenant (Lt.) General (Gen.) Richard M. Clark, was unable to define gender-ideology terms that are promoted on Department of Defense (DoD) campuses when questioned by U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01).
You can view the questioning here:
Representative Gaetz also published a transcript of the hearing:
Rep. Gaetz: A diverse and inclusive force is a warfighting imperative. This is on a slide at the Air Force Academy General Clark, do you agree with that statement?
Lt. Gen. Clark: I do agree with that statement, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: So I mean, were the Mongols diverse?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Well, sir, I’m not really as versed on Mongol warfighting is.
Rep. Gaetz: How about the war fighting? Were the Vikings diverse?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Again, sir, I’m looking at our country, the most diverse country in the world
Rep. Gaetz: sure. But this is about a warfighting imperative. How about the fight the force in Ukraine? Are the Ukrainians fighting the Russians a diverse force?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir, once again, my concern is the people that I’m charged to build into leaders.
Rep. Gaetz: Right. But you would you would acknowledge that throughout history, including present history, that statement hasn’t born true in every example. Right?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir what I would say is that those countries have to rely on the full force of their population, to build a war fighting to win our wars. And that’s why it’s important for us to be diverse, because nation.
Rep. Gaetz: Let’s look at the population that actually makes up the fighting force frequently. Now we have more men and women, right? 70-30 ish.
Lt. Gen. Clark: That’s correct.
Rep. Gaetz: And of the men we have, most of them are not transgender men. Most of them are cisgender men, right?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Yes, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: But yet, at our academies, we put push something called the Brooke Owens fellowship. Are you familiar with that?
Lt. Gen. Clark: I am. Yes, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: And in that fellowship, it specifically says, If you are a cisgender, man, this program isn’t for you. So you just said that your answer on why we why we do such this, this full hug of these diversity concepts is because it’s all about the fighting force that we draw from, but you’re literally pushing a program in the academies that says, if you’re a cisgender woman, a transgender woman, a non binary, agender, bi gender, 2 spirit, Demi gender, what’s Demi gender?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir, that’s a that’s a term of the people that are eligible for that particular scholarship
Rep. Gaetz: But what’s a Demi gender person?
Lt. Gen. Clark: It’s a person who looks at their gender in a in a different, a different way than I do, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: Well, sure. That’s all of these people. You’re a cisgender. Man, you don’t even get to apply.
Lt. Gen. Clark: Well
Rep. Gaetz: Do you know what Demi gender really means?
Lt. Gen. Clark: I’m not really sure, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: Right. So do you know what agender means? All one word, not a space gender. But agender?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir, I don’t.
Rep. Gaetz: Right. So here we are pushing a fellowship, calling for people that you don’t even know what the words mean. And the number one group of people, the cisgender men are excluded? Not in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion. Should we be pushing programs that we can’t define that exclude the largest group of servicemembers?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Well, sir, first, that program is not an Air Force Academy program. It’s a program open to our entire country.
Rep. Gaetz: Right. We allow guys advocate for within the academy.
Lt. Gen. Clark: We allow our cadets to apply for it.
Rep. Gaetz: Why are you allowing your cadets to apply for a program when you cannot define the basic terms of eligibility?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Because it’s an opportunity for us to develop them as warfighters. And we look for every opportunity that we can
Rep. Gaetz: But you don’t even know what the words mean, how can you use this as a way to develop the warfighters? If you don’t know what it means?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Well, some of those could those terms may not be applicable to us at the Air Force Academy, but some are
Rep. Gaetz: But if you don’t know what they mean, it’s hard to tell if they’re applicable or not.
The Western Journal has helped us out with helpful links to the meaning of “demigender” and “agender,” if you were wondering:
Just in case you were wondering, blog GenderGP defines agender as people who “see themselves as neither a man nor a woman, or both. They’re gender-neutral and often are described as genderfree or genderless.” Meanwhile, according to LGBT-centric outlet Queer in the World, demigender refers to “a gender identity that refers to a partial, but not a full connection to a specific gender identity or the idea of gender. Many demigender individuals also identify as nonbinary.”
I actually am happy that the Air Force Academy’s Superintendent has no idea what “demigender” and “agender” are. I just wish we weren’t sending our Air Force cadets to programs with those as eligibility categories.
One other item that caught my attention that no outlet appears to have reported on is that the Brooke Owens Fellowship “is designed to serve both as an inspiration and as a career boost to capable young women and other gender minorities who, like Brooke, aspire to explore our sky and stars, to shake up the aerospace industry, and to help their fellow people here on planet Earth.” (emphasis added). So this fellowship helps young people get a head start in aerospace, as long as you are a woman or a “gender minority” — heterosexual men need not apply, because they are not eligible.
And the list of corporations sponsoring this fellowship reads like the aerospace hall of fame: Airbus, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, the FAA, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Spacex, Virgin Orbit, Voyager Space, and others; they all work to promote and pay for this fellowship — and all are captured by the transgender movement.
Think about that the next time you sign up for space travel!
Kind of reminds me of Stockton Rush, the now-dead CEO of OceanGate, whose deep sea sub imploded with the loss of five souls onboard last month. Rush was famous for, as we reported: The OceanGate Disaster: a Submarine Captain’s Early Unofficial Assessment, not wanting “50-year-old white guys” because they weren’t “inspirational” enough. As I said at the time:
This decision…elevated virtue signaling over a rational acceptance of risk and excellence. Additionally, Rush’s comment about the video game controller [that the sub was easy to drive] irritates me, not because of the controller, but because he had to know that merely “driving the sub” is a minor part of the task – more important is having the experience and capability to survive when things go haywire, something “50-year-old white guys” who are “ex-military submariners” are probably pretty good at — a 25-year-old with no experience? Not so much.
Is the same thing happening in our aerospace industry? When something goes haywire (which it will) when you’re hurtling through space, do you want a 50-year-old white guy at the helm, or someone who is young and “demigender,” whatever the hell that is.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for more of this madness. Stay tuned.
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Comments
This does not engender confidence in the military.
Good puns today.
How willfully and usefully stupid can you get?
Take the stars off this fool’s shoulders.
If your going to push Cultural Marxism try and keep up please, it’s your policy. Oh and BLM agenda as well.
You just have to keep in mind that it all comes down to being, as long as the student involved does not have warfighting capability, or the capacity to learn such, and is not like most Americans; the government supports it.
Subotai Bahadur
“I’m not exactly sure what you are asking, sir.”
Umm, it was a pretty straightforward question. Diversity hire.
AA Lieutenant General Richard M. Clark, “Well, I only have three stars. If I were to get a fourth star, I’d probably be able to answer your question.”
Can aircraft be designed using DEI anti-white supremacist math? Asking for a friend.
Yes, but only if the explanatory descriptions are written in Ebonics.
And the recorded voice is programmed to nag, “Be higha! Be higha!”
Certainly. But if you want them to, you know, fly then that is another question. Frankly it is a racist question. After all, expecting designs to work is white supremacy.
Umm, is every head of every department of the Army now headed by black people
Oh and then there’s the trans Rachel, but he’s an asset of something
Oh, destroying Americas youth
The next war will be fought by citizen-guerillas cuz the military is AWOL.
Glad I’m out. Glad my sons never joined.
Sad, because my grandfather was one of America’s first military aviators in WWI, my other grandfather fought under French colors in WWI and then against the Bolsheviks at Warsaw in 1920, my father served during the Korean War and two uncles served in WWII– USMC infantry. I have more distant ancestors who fought for the Union in the Civil War. As for me, I had a bit part in Desert Storm. Not being ironic, just a wee bit part. Oh, and 14 years during the Cold War.
But this military, “diversity is our strength”? Our strength always used to be our training, our equipment, and our sheer guts. Again, glad I’m out and that my sons didn’t carry on the family tradition. I guess the Sec Army will be pleased that they’re not part of a “warrior caste.”
This is the army, Mr Jones