Top Admiral of the American Navy Michael Gilday defends the non -binary sailor in the midst of a republican criticism

Cnn
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The first admiral of the American navy ardently defended a non -binary sailor on Tuesday in the criticism of the republican legislators, saying that he is “particularly proud of this sailor”.

The sailor, LTJG Audrey Kutson, shared their story on the Marine Instagram page last week. In a short video, Knutson said they were proud to serve as non-binary, especially because their grandfather served in the navy as a gay man during the Second World War. During a deployment last fall aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, Knutson said that their culmination was to read a poem to the whole ship during a LGBTQ spoken word evening. Instagram video has collected nearly 17,000 likes.

Subsequently, Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, tweeted Part of the clip with legend: “Although China is preparing for war, that’s what we focused on our American navy.” On Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican Tommy Tubama, continued to attack the video on Tommy, telling the Senate’s armed services committee that he had “a lot of problems with the video”.

But the head of naval operations, the ADM. Michael Gilday, defended the sailor, stressing that it was the work of a commander to build a war fighting team.

“I will tell you why I am particularly proud of this sailor,” Gilday told the hearing. “So, his grandfather served during the Second World War, and he was gay and he was ostracized in the institution that she not only joined and is proud to be part, but she volunteered to deploy on Ford and she will probably unfold again next month when Ford returns to sea.”

Gilday used female pronouns to refer to Knutson, but the navy said that CNN Kutson pronouns are non -binary.

“We ask people from all over the country, from all walks of life, from all different backgrounds to join us,” said Gilday, “and then it is the work of a commander to build a coherent war team who will follow the law, and the law requires that we are able to conduct operations that are promoted and supported at sea. Can be legally joined by the American navy Taken to put their lives at stake, then I am proud to serve next to them.

Some Republican legislators from Capitol Hill attacked the military to be too “awake”, saying that it was one of the causes of the bad army figures, despite a recent army investigation showing that 5% of potential recruits were concerned about “unlocking”.

Last month, republican representative Cory Mills and several others continued the Ministry of Defense on his training on diversity, equity and inclusion during a sub-comity hearing of the armed services of the House on Military Staff. Mills said: “We can absolutely spend a pronoun each of our opponents, and China and Russia, I’m sure, I’m in trembling in their boots on this subject.”

In response, the under-secretary for the defense of staff and preparation, Gil Cisneros, said that diversity and training on equal opportunities have been one of the military for decades.

During another hearing in early March with the best army leaders, the SGT. The army major Michael Grinston stressed that the accent put by the soldiers remains on combat lethality, even with additional training on diversity and inclusion.

“There is an hour of training on equal opportunities in basic training and 92 hours of training on rifle shooting,” said Grinston at the time. “And if you go to [One Station Unit Training]There is 165 hours of rifle shooting and another hour of training on equal opportunities. »»