No one should be excluded from a job based on their identity or their sexuality – especially when that job is protecting the country. This week, The U.S. Military will announce their plans to no longer exclude transgender individuals from being service members. “We must ensure that everyone who's able and willing to serve has the full and equal opportunity to do so,” said Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
Officials will assess the cost of the necessary changes, such as bathrooms and uniforms, over a period of six months. Read More

When Maggie Young started writing a memoir about the 23 men she slept with between the ages of 16 and 26, she didn’t expect it to become a liberating and relatable story for women living in an age still plagued by misogynistic treatment, absurd double standards, and impossible expectations.
But that’s exactly what Just Another Number is: A raw, honest reflection on her adolescence through early adulthood that fearlessly details her struggles with bulimia, drugs, the military, and her dependence on male approval. Read More

The Daily Show is known for comedically addressing social injustices, but Jessica Williams is the first correspondent on the show to tackle things like racial and gender inequality with this amount of import and immediacy (and in a way that still leaves you sore from laughing). This clip about sexual assault and campus safety speaks for itself:
Last Friday, Williams had a segment on the show addressing the ridiculous new US military uniform codes which, among other things, strictly limit the ways black women in the military can wear their hair. Read More

This week, the United States Senate will be debating the Military Justice Improvement Act. The controversial legislation would alter the military legal process as it stands. Rather than the "chain of command" handling prosecution, cases will be dealt with by an "impartial military prosecutor."
You should care about this because it will change how the military deals with rape and sexual assault by stifling "retaliation" against those reporting sexual crimes, as well as instating a dishonorable discharge policy for those convicted of sexual assault. Read More

It's no news that the military is still having trouble grasping the definition of sexual assault. If the Air Force's head of sexual assault prevention can't even get it right, is it even surprising that so many others are just as fucked up? And it's getting worse every year. Since 2010, sexual assaults in the military have skyrocketed from 19,000 to 26,000 today. This Air Force brochure about rape risk reduction is telling of how misguided whoever put this thing together was. Read More

Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski is the chief of the Air Force's sexual assault prevention and response branch. Ironically enough, Krusinski was arrested this past weekend in Arlington, Virginia for assaulting a woman. According to local police reports, he fondled the woman's breasts and buttocks in a parking lot.
Pentagon spokesman George Little has stated that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel “expressed outrage and disgust over the troubling allegations” and “emphasized that this matter will be dealt with swiftly and decisively.” Great. Read More

Now that the Obama Administration has lifted the ban on women in combat, the next question is whether women will now be required to register for the draft. As it stands now, only men between the ages of 18-35 are eligible to be drafted into military service, but a revision of that law might be inevitable now that women are officially allowed to serve in combat positions.
At no point in American history have women been drafted into the military, and there’s no talk of reinstating the draft in the foreseeable future. Read More

Believe it or not, women are the last group subject to a blanket exclusion in the military since the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Despite how much the nature of warfare has changed over the last decade, women in the US Military are still not allowed to engage in ground combat or situations where they will be exposed to hostile fire. Four veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are trying to change this outdated law by suing the Department of Defense. Read More

For thousands of years, embroidered patches have been a means of identification. Dating back to the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, Mideast, China, and India, elaborate hand-stitched fabric swatches were tools used for the military. Other times, such embellishments were a sign of beauty for other important personnel, stitched onto the robes of royalty or religious figures. Even today, patches are seen on a wide range of people: from the military to sanitation workers and even, of course, on Boy and Girl Scouts. Read More

Seeing as how the women in our military risk their lives every single day while on duty, it would only seem logical that they should have the best health care possible. Unfortunately, this is definitely not the case. Servicewomen and dependents are currently banned from using their insurance coverage for abortion if they are a victim of rape or incest. It’s deplorable, and a new group, Stand with Servicewomen, has come together to fight the ban. New television ads calling for an appeal of the ban will run during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Read More