Donnelly is president of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent public policy organization that reports on and analyzes military and social issues.

She explained, "The nation is worried about serious national security threats, including Chinese spy aircraft, but the U.S. Department of Defense seems preoccupied with misplaced priorities. 'Woke' policies are taking leftist ideologies to extremes with enforced compliance, even if it hurts the institution."

She pointed out that over Biden's term in the White House, "Defense Department officials have expanded woke transgender mandates in significant ways. A comprehensive policy analysis titled 'Biden Pentagon Quietly Expands Woke Transgender Policies in the Military,' … compares Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin's directives to the 2016 transgender policies of Barack Obama and Ashton Carter.

"As in the Obama years, the Biden/Austin policy fully embraces the idea that individuals can change their 'sex assigned at birth to a different gender role.' Department of Defense Instruction 1300.28, updated on Dec. 20, 2022, has changed the official vocabulary of this pseudo-science, using the phrase 'self-identified gender' instead of 'preferred gender' throughout."

She said the accepted standard for Biden's military is that "if a person 'self-identifies' as a person of the opposite sex, and if the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) changes a person’s bureaucratic 'gender marker,' a man claiming to be a woman must be treated as a woman, and vice versa."

That means commanders, doctors, military personnel – and "chaplains" – must adhere to the unscientific ideology, as being male or female is embedded in the human body down to the DNA level and simply cannot be changed.

Punishment looms against those who may use the wrong pronouns for an activist, or more.

"Individuals who are confused about gender identity deserve compassionate counseling, competent medical care, and complete information about the serious risks and irreversible consequences of 'gender-affirming' treatments that do not change biological sex. Instead, a self-diagnosis of gender dysphoria permits only one course of treatment, pushing the service member toward life-changing, often-irreversible transgender 'transition,' without an independent 'second opinion,'" she said.

Worse, "Biden’s regulations do not protect or even mention rights of religious liberty for chaplains and people of faith. Nor do they provide options for doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel who object to transgender ideology on moral or ethical grounds."

Biden's policy, in fact, "denies human biological realities and violates minimal expectations of personal privacy and modesty between men and women," she said.

And the ramifications? Damage to the U.S. military, she pointed out.

"A recent independent, high-tech survey on the politicization of the military done by the Heritage Foundation found that among active-duty respondents, 80 percent said the 'changing of policy to allow unrestricted service by transgender individuals' has decreased their trust in the military. Sixty-eight percent of active-duty responses reported seeing a 'growing politicization,' which is affecting their decision to encourage their children to join the military."