Women are already getting squeezed out of Pete Hegseth’s military.
A female Navy captain was set to become the first woman to oversee Navy SEALs in a Naval Special Warfare command in July—until her promotion was abruptly canceled with little to no explanation.
She was the top officer for promotion in her cohort, CNN reported Tuesday on the unnamed commander. She received a Purple Heart for her time in Iraq, during which she was injured in an IED attack. She was also the first female troop commander to serve with SEAL Team Six.
“She was the best man for the job. There is absolutely no DEI,” a retired SEAL told CNN.
But two weeks before the ceremony commemorating her advance was set to take place, her rank change was canceled.
The decision came through a series of phone calls that skirted formal channels while omitting a paper trail, several sources told CNN. The consensus among Naval Special Warfare is that the incoming commander was yanked by the defense secretary because of her gender.
“They want to keep it the brotherhood and don’t like that she’s coming in and challenging the status quo,” a Navy special operations source familiar with the situation told the news network.
A Pentagon official said that the command was pulled because the officer wasn’t a SEAL, not because she is a woman, and that Hegseth had no hand in the matter. But multiple people familiar with Navy personnel dynamics weren’t buying it.
And many people are worried about what Hegseth’s policies will do to the state of women in the military in general. “To be quite honest, I am fearful for women in uniform right now,” said Patti J. Tutalo, a retired Coast Guard commander. Tutalo served on an advisory group for women in the military before it was shut down this year after decades of work.
“I definitely think there will be a retention issue for women. I also think that you’re going to see an increase in assaults, increase in harassment, increase in bullying, hazing, and I think there’ll be a lack of accountability for those things.”
In September, Hegseth announced to hundreds of America’s top military commanders at a mandatory in-person assembly in Quantico that he would be resetting military combat requirements to the “highest male standard only.”
“When it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral,” Hegseth said at the time. “If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it.”
Women made up 17.3 percent of America’s active-duty force in 2021, with more than 231,000 members. That same year, they composed 21.4 percent of the National Guard, according to a demographics report from the Defense Department.
Hegseth has openly said before that he does not believe women should serve in combat roles. During a November 2024 interview on the Shawn Ryan Show, Hegseth said, “I’m straight-up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”
