{"id":84405,"date":"2026-11-15T15:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T15:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/84405\/"},"modified":"2026-11-15T15:00:02","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T15:00:02","slug":"gender-diverse-australian-sailors-barred-from-us-submarines-despite-aukus-deal-documents-reveal-australian-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/84405\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender-diverse Australian sailors barred from US submarines despite Aukus deal, documents reveal | Australian military"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aukus is effectively forcing the Australian navy to comply with a US ban on transgender people in the military with gender-diverse navy recruits prevented from starting a career<\/a> in nuclear submarines because they would not be safe training on US boats.<\/p>\n

Internal Australian defence force documents show transgender and non-binary sailors and officers are explicitly banned from Australia\u2019s nuclear submarine training program because of US policies..<\/p>\n

An internal defence briefing, released under freedom of information laws, said while ADF policy on equality and inclusion was unchanged, \u201cUS government policy is different<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cADF personnel undertaking duty in the US (including training) are required to comply with US policy,\u201d the briefing said.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsequently, transgender and nonbinary ADF personnel and ADF career applicants are currently unable to commence the SSN [nuclear-powered attack submarines] training pathway.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Australia, without a nuclear submarine fleet of its own, has hundreds of sailors and officers training on US nuclear submarines and on US bases.<\/p>\n

At a women in defence event<\/a> in October, Rear Adm Tish van Stralen was asked how the defence force was \u201cmanaging the recruitment of gender-diverse and LGBTQ+ Australians into the nuclear submarine pathway\u201d given the US directive.<\/p>\n

Van Stralen, one of the highest-ranking women in the Australian navy, said the ADF was a diverse and equal opportunity employer.<\/p>\n

But she said potential recruits for the nuclear submarine program were told the ADF was \u201csubject to policies and laws in other countries, so we have to be very mindful\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have an obligation, a duty of care to our people, so we do not want to put our people into any sort of harm\u2019s way or anything that might adversely affect them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m working very closely with navy at the moment and with the submarine agency around the training opportunities because it would be very difficult for me to put a gender-diverse person into that training<\/a> at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Stralen said the navy would seek alternative career paths for gender-diverse recruits prohibited from the nuclear submarine program. She said the UK, Australia\u2019s other Aukus<\/a> partner, had \u201cmore liberal policies\u201d and that training opportunities \u201cmay arise in the UK\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to disadvantage people because of it but we are subject to the laws and policies of the US when we are in their country.\u201d<\/p>\n

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US moves came amid Aukus deal<\/p>\n

The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, last year issued a directive to his department \u201cto eliminate all diversity<\/a>, equity and inclusion offices and initiatives\u201d. He also has sought to ban transgender personnel from joining the US military \u2013 repeatedly using offensive slurs in public statements \u2013 and ordered that transgender personnel be purged from the services.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 \u2013 the first week of his second term as president \u2013 which banned transgender service personnel<\/a> and said gender-diverse people were unfit to serve.<\/p>\n

Announcing military cuts in September amid continued attacks on diversity, Hegseth declared<\/a> that the US military would accept \u201cno fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals\u201d.<\/p>\n

Under the Aukus deal, it is proposed that Australia will buy three Virginia-class nuclear submarines from the US, beginning in 2032. In the lead-up to that, Australian sailors are training onboard US Virginia-class submarines and at US bases, while US-flagged nuclear submarines are porting in Australia.<\/p>\n

Crewing Australia\u2019s proposed nuclear submarine fleet is likely to prove one of the Aukus agreement\u2019s most critical, sustained challenges. Virginia-class submarines have a complement of 135, more than double the crew for Australia\u2019s diesel-electric Collins-class submarines.<\/p>\n

Last week Australia\u2019s defence minister, Richard Marles<\/a>, said the Aukus timeline presented the country with a significant \u201ctraining challenge\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just need to be training more people<\/a> and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Marles said at HMAS Stirling, the West Australian port through which US nuclear-powered submarines have been rotating.<\/p>\n

The Australian defence department did not respond to questions from the Guardian about the impact of adhering to the US policy directive, including how many Australian service personnel have been prevented from undertaking nuclear submarine training.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s nuclear-powered submarine workforce strategy urges defence to \u201cproactively expand the talent pool through active inclusion of underrepresented groups<\/a>, including women, First Nations Australians, regional communities, and individuals who may not traditionally see themselves in technical or defence-related careers\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aukus is effectively forcing the Australian navy to comply with a US ban on transgender people in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[207],"class_list":["post-84405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us-wars","tag-u-s-military-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@conflicts\/117621058721491493","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}