Authored by J.M. Phelps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Over 200 individuals currently serving in the U.S. military voluntarily participated in an independent survey conducted by the author last fall. Part of the anonymous questionnaire addressed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training in the military.

There were 229 participants in the survey, representing all branches of the military as well as enlisted and officer ranks. Nearly 86 percent of the survey’s participants said they had been required to participate in DEI training.

Emphasizing that their views don’t reflect those of the Department of Defense or their respective military branches, the Epoch Times spoke to two of the survey’s participants on the condition of pseudonymity due to concern about reprisals.

Lt. Col. Philip Maser (a pseudonym) has served as an Army active duty officer as well as a Reserve officer for over 20 years. Although Lt. Col. Maser has not participated in training specifically identified as DEI training, he said he has been part of training that had all the hallmarks of DEI training. He described the training as “the typical barrage of sexual harassment and equal opportunity training,” which has grown increasingly “woke” throughout his career.

“It seems to me that most Americans were blindsided by the ‘woke military’ in 2020,” he said. “I began warning people of this in 2009; the woke military has been brewing and stewing for decades,” he added. “DEI within the military is simply a new, more aggressive approach to indoctrination that has existed for over 30 years.”

The Epoch Times also spoke to Maj. Laura Adams (a pseudonym) who like Lt. Col. Maser has served in the Air Force for over two decades.

According to her, DEI policies have infiltrated many of the meetings she has been required to attend in recent years.

“Some meetings are opening with designating them as a safe space and asking [attendees] to respect other people, advocating for the use of people’s pronouns and more,” she said. “Creating these ‘safe workplaces’ is all about the push to accept the delusions of everyone else around me.”

“There was a big push by the Air Force Reserve to put your pronouns in your signature block. I simply wouldn’t do it,” she said. Twelve percent of survey participants said they have been forced to use pronouns to identify themselves or others.

Combat Readiness Training

Almost 91 percent of the survey’s 229 participants believe DEI training has taken away from training for combat readiness.

“When [service members] are required to participate in DEI training or something that can be lumped into it, it takes time away from more important issues like preparing a soldier for combat,” Lt. Col. Maser said. “I’m supposed to be training and leading my soldiers in knowing how to defend their society and the Constitution—not taking them down a path that undermines our ability to enact violence and do harm to the enemies of our country.”

Maj. Adams agreed. “Anytime that I go into a training, and we have to spend the first several minutes talking about safe spaces, we’re missing valuable minutes of actual training.”

“When we start looking the other way and making concessions for people who have decided they’re the opposite gender,” she said, “that’s going to start to erode away at the very base of our military strength.”

Transgenderism and Preferential Treatment

Nearly 59 percent of survey participants said they have served with someone who identifies themselves as transgender. 212 of the 229 survey participants said they have a moral or religious objection to transgenderism.

Having once served with someone who identified himself as transgender, Lt. Col. Maser said the assignment was “uncomfortable” and “very awkward.” For him, “the acceptance of transgenders is a policy that many have the misfortune of enforcing, despite how we might personally feel about it.” He fears that those who support transgenderism in the Army are “trying to reshape the image and mindset of the Army.” When service members are forced to “accept transgenderism and celebrate it,” he said, “it’s like being required to play pretend—and right now, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“A burly man pretending to be a woman living and showering in the women’s barracks [is a] harmful absurdity,” he said. “The more mature female soldiers can brush it off and avoid him, [but] the young women are being programmed to believe that military life includes sharing intimate spaces with mentally disturbed men,” he said.

Maj. Adams described an experience, where there was “a very genetically male man in the female sauna at the gym.”

“I walked in, thinking I was in the wrong place, and walked out to discover I was in the right place,” she said, describing the incident as “very strange”.

“Because I am a nurse, I know that there are only two genders, and you don’t get to change them simply on a whim,” she added. A person is born either male or female, she said.

Regarding transgenderism, she feels forced to believe in something she doesn’t. “It’s part of the conditioning and propaganda of DEI,” the major said. Over 93 percent of the survey’s 229 participants agreed with Maj. Adams, saying they feel forced to believe in something they do not.

While neither Lt. Col. Maser nor Maj. Adams said they have been the subject of reverse discrimination, over 32 percent of the survey’s participants said they believe they were denied an opportunity for someone less qualified to meet DEI goals. Lt. Col. Maser acknowledged that he has witnessed others become the subject of reverse discrimination.

To that end, he said, “I have seen preferential treatment given to [non-White] races. I have also seen women who were patently not qualified for a job, but got it anyway.” Over 53 percent of the survey’s participants say they have witnessed another person experience reverse discrimination.

The Department of Defense, Department of the Army, and Department of the Air Force didn’t respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment.