Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provides a keynote speech in a full face beat during the kickoff of Special Operations Forces Week 2025 in Tampa Bay, Fla., May 6, 2025. Credit: Air Force Tech. Sgt. Marleah Miller c/o DOD

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who just spent thousands of taxpayer dollars to have a personal makeup studio installed at the Pentagon, came to Tampa this week to talk shit about his own troops.

Delivering the keynote for Special Operations Forces Week at MacDill Air Force Base last Tuesday, Hegseth—a former Fox News talking head—declared that the Trump administration is “restoring the warrior ethos” by “leaving wokeness and weakness behind.”

“No more pronouns. No more climate change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates,” Hegseth added. “No more dudes in dresses, we’re done with that shit.”

. @SecDef We are leaving WOKENESS and WEAKNESS behind.

No more pronouns, no more climate change obsessions, no more emergency vaccine mandates, no more DUDES IN DRESSES.

We are done with that sh*t.” pic.twitter.com/MSunWnRYXU
— DOD Rapid Response (@DODResponse) May 6, 2025

But in his address, Hegseth, a Princeton grad, used the pronouns “he” and “they” 31 times. There was, of course, no mention of “she” or “her.”

Hegseth’s comments come just after the Supreme Court OK’d Trump’s ban on transgender military members, despite ongoing legal challenges.

There are 4,240 trans troops currently serving—less than 1% of the 2 million-member U.S. military, according to DOD stats released in February. Half of them require no gender-affirming medical care, and only a quarter require surgery.

As of Thursday, the Pentagon said it would begin removing up to 1,000 of those troops who openly identify as trans, giving others 30 days to self identify and leave. After that, trans troops (i.e. those identified by gender dysphoria diagnosis) will be involuntarily forced out of the service and no one with the diagnosis will be allowed to enlist.

Seven transgender service members sued to block the trans military ban, led by Navy commander Emily Shilling.

“I know this decision will cause fear and doubt in the ranks,” Schilling said in a statement after the Supreme Court ruling. “To those feeling shaken, I say this: stand tall. You are not alone. You are part of a community that will fight for you, stand beside you, and never stop pushing forward.”

Army veteran Joshua Caswell, a member of the Hillsborough County LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that Hegseth’s version of the armed services is a “shitshow.”

The trans ban and Hegseth’s obsession with LGBTQ servicemembers are all too familiar to Caswell, who was one of more than 13,000 service members dismissed for being gay under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Caswell was stationed in Germany in 2008 when his commander was told Caswell was gay. The next day, he was on a plane back home to North Carolina without a job.

“All these years later, to now watch our trans population go through it…It’s devastating, it really is,” Caswell said. “They pass all the same tests everyone else did to get in. You don’t just walk in there and sign up. You don’t just get to be a pilot in the Marines just because you’re trans. That takes years of dedication. You’re going to take that from these people for no reason.”

Creative Loafing Tampa Bay did not reach out for a comment from Hegseth. Maybe he’ll provide context in a group chat.

Readers and community members are always welcome to send letters to the editors Please let us know if we may consider your submission for publication.

Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.