Intersex people in the United States military

The United States Armed Forces as a whole does not officially ban intersex people from service but does exclude many based on the form of their status.

In a 2020 response piece by David Albert Jones, the author uses the case of Pulaski to argue that someone's initial anatomy does not impact their expression and experience of the cultural aspects of identifying as a different gender.

[3] In November 2008, the official policy of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marines was that intersex individuals, along with those who were transgender, or had other reported "disorders", had medical or psychological problems, meaning that they were ineligible to serve.

[13] In May 2017, scholar Kelly L. Fisher stated that U.S. military policies prevented intersex, and transgender, people from serving openly.

[26] The acceptance of transgender individuals in 2016 by the Armed Forces did not touch on intersex people and they are still subject to specific reviews before enlistment, as noted before.

[30] A case against the attempted ban noted that the VHA had begun health care for transgender and intersex veterans following a June 2011 order.

[31] Intersex activist and Navy veteran Dana Zzyym has expressed that their family's military background made it out of the question for them to be associated with the queer community as a youth due to the prevalence of homophobia in the armed forces.

[36] In March 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense stating that U.S. military would be "promoting and protecting the human rights" of intersex and other LGBTQ people.

[40][41] However, this claim was contradicted by a veteran who stated that she was allowed to serve openly and be deployed during Desert Storm as an intersex woman.

[43] In contrast, another response to Hunter was from Choire Sicha of The Awl who stated that "intersex people aren't welcome to serve, but no one's quite sure how and why", but did not elaborate on if they believed this referred to all conditions or just visible ones.

which joked about his opinion on the subject, claiming that including intersex people would be advantageous to the military, since they could "pursue enemies into both men's and women's restrooms".

[48] Even if those in the Military human resources department are accepting and want to help these individuals, the established limitations would not allow them to give them assistance, whether or not these surgeries are happening as a veteran or even to "a decorated war hero".

[51][44] In the U.S. Army, the official policy is that individuals who identify as intersex or have other sex-related disorders are medically problematic and/or psychologically disturbed; hence, they are not eligible to serve.

[50] In 2008, many U.S. Navy recruiters believed that intersex people should be disqualified from service, mainly due to the expectation that they would cause increased demand for medical treatment.