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‘No more dudes in dresses — we’re done with that s**t’: Hegseth responds to Supreme Court ruling

May 7, 2025 | | Print Article

Bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth asserted the end of “wokeness and weakness” with a slam on one specific ideology.

“We’re done with that sh*t.”

As President Donald Trump seemingly can’t blink without leftist activists having a meltdown, much of the administration’s efforts have been challenged in court to some degree or another. While especially true where the Marxist agenda is concerned, Tuesday’s decision to stay an order blocking the ban on those “expressing a false ‘gender identity'” was summed up by the secretary as, “No more dudes in dresses.”

The comment came as Hegseth was delivering the keynote speech at Special Operations Forces Week 2025 in Tampa, Florida, as he conveyed the mission that the president had tasked him with.

“We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind. No more pronouns. No more climate change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates. No more dudes in dresses. We’re done with that sh*t,” said the secretary to applause and cheers.

Hegseth shared two things that the president told him upon asking him to lead the Defense Department. After saying, “You’re going to have to be tough as sh*t … they’re gonna come after ya,” Hegseth recalled that Trump went on to express, “I need you and I want you to restore the warrior ethos in our military, full stop. And that’s been my first priority since day one is restoring the warrior ethos.”

“It’s one of the most fundamental of those three objectives. Again, humans are more important than hardware. Everything starts and ends with warriors, from training to the battlefield,” the Defense Department head affirmed.

“We’re focused on lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards, and readiness. That’s why, since Election Day, since President Trump was elected, recruitment and retention numbers are up historically,” he went on. “Attracting military service is something Americans have long been attracted to. But more so when they see leadership they want to follow.”

A 6-3 ruling from the Supreme Court, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting, granted a stay on the preliminary injunction on the ban from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The stay is pending appeal and will terminate should a writ of certiorari be granted by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the case.

The policy that came as a result of Trump’s executive order, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” directed that “the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals who have a current diagnosis or history or, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.”

In defending the ban, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued to the Supreme Court that President Joe Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes and President George W. Bush-appointed U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle had committed overreach on the president’s authority over the armed forces and said, “The Constitution does not authorize courts to to second-guess the approach to gender transition adopted by the 2025 policy.”

Biden had reversed Trump’s original ban, with a narrower scope than the current one, of which the Supreme Court had ruled in favor.

Hegseth’s no-nonsense approach to executing the president’s mandate was lauded by supporters who chimed in on social media to praise what they “voted for,” asserting, “Woke was a phase. National security isn’t. We’re back to being a country that builds warriors, not safe spaces.”

Kevin Haggerty
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