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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivers keynote address at Special Operations Forces Week in Tampa, Florida, May 2025
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sparks outrage by denigrating transgender military members, saying the armed forces are "leaving wokeness behind."
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth denigrated transgender military service members in a speech to a gathering of special forces operators on Tuesday, vowing, “No more dude in dresses, we’re done with that s**t.”
Hegseth was delivering the keynote address at the Special Operations Forces Week 2025 taking place in Tampa, Florida. He made the inflammatory remarks in the context of returning the “warrior ethos” to the military.
“Everything starts and ends with warriors, from training to the battlefield,” Hegseth said, according to the official Department of Defense transcript. “We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind. No more pronouns. No more climate change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates. No more dudes in dresses, we're done with that shit.”
Related: Hegseth ‘unfit’ for duty, say Pete Buttigieg
He had earlier said that the new military would be “leaving wokeness behind.”
Hegseth later reposted a clip of the remarks to X.
Hegseth made the comments on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a lower court order preventing Hegseth and President Donald Trump from summarily discharging transgender service members from the military.
The ruling allows the Pentagon to begin discharging service members with a diagnosis or history of gender dysphoria and to deny enlistment to transgender Americans. The unsigned order was approved 6-3, with the court’s three liberal justices dissenting.
Related: SCOTUS says Trump’s trans military ban can go into effect
The ban was authorized by Executive Order 14183, which mandates the discharge of all transgender service members regardless of performance or qualifications, and to block their future enlistment. The order allows the discharges to continue while the case, Commander Emily Shilling et al. v. United States, winds its way through the appeals process in the Ninth Circuit.
According to its website, SOF Week “is an annual conference for the international SOF community to learn, connect, and honor its members,” and that the gathering will “foster collaboration, innovation, and excellence, showcasing the cutting-edge capabilities and strategies that define modern special operations.”
