On Tuesday, the Pentagon quietly eliminated a new gender-neutral pronoun rule requiring top award citations to refer to the recipient by the woke, grammatically-repugnant term “themself” – but, only after the rule was publicly exposed.
On August 7, the Defense Department (DoD) issued Change 5 to its “Manual of Military Decorations and Awards” for six prestigious service awards, mandating a recipient be cited as “themself,” instead of as either “him” or “her” (emphasis added):
“Superior Meritorious Service (e.g., PCS and Retirement awards): (Rank) First M. Last, Jr., United States (Military Service), distinguished themself by superior meritorious service in a position of significant responsibility as (position and duty assignment), from (month year) to (month year).”
On September 1, The Daily Signal exposed the new rule in an exclusive report:
“Change 5 imposes by fiat a radical redefining of what it means to be a man or a woman and to be recognized as such. It is the latest manifestation of a political agenda that seeks to homogenize humanity by stripping it of a defining characteristic.”
“This is insane,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), a former U.S. Marine intelligence officer, tweeted in objection to Change 5, linking to The Daily Signal’s article.
On September 8, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., denounced the new pronoun policy in a public letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
On Tuesday, September 19, the DoD issued Change 6 to the manual, eliminating the "themself" fiat and returning to "him" and "her."
“This was no mistake—the administration has been trying to woke-ify the military since Joe Biden took office,” Cotton told The Daily Signal. The only reason the Pentagon reversed course is that “They got caught,” the senator added.
“A bill shouldn’t be needed to allow the men and women in our U.S. military to use the pronouns ‘him’ and ‘her,’ but this is Biden’s Department of Defense!” Representative Greg Steube (R-Fla.) declared in a social media post announcing his introduction of a bill to reverse the gender-neutral “themself” rule.
Steube’s Preserve Military Recognition Act would permanently reverse the DoD Manual of Military Decorations and Awards rule requiring the use of a gender-neutral pronoun in military awards.
The gender-neutral rule “is yet another example of the Biden administration infiltrating our military with leftist propaganda,” Rep. Steube says in a press release announcing his bill:
“Attempting to wipe out any sign of gender as the men and women who honorably serve our country receive awards is insulting. The Biden administration’s liberal policies are to blame for our military recruitment and retention issues.”
For the record, the use of “themself” doesn’t just promulgate gender confusion, it’s also grammatically-confusing, being a combination of the plural “them” and the singular “self.”
The correct third person plural is “themselves.”