Former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner shared a reaction to the Air Force’s announcement that one fellowship’s applications are open for gender minorities.
The Brooke Owens Fellowship program, originally intended for female undergraduate students with aspirations to work in the aerospace industry, is promoted by the Air Force Academy, with some former fellows having served in the branch. Fellows get a 12-week paid experience to learn from industry leaders. Now, the fellowship is open to what its website refers to as “gender minorities” that “are underrepresented in aerospace.”
“If you are a cisgender woman, a transgender woman, non-binary, agender, bigender, two-spirit, demigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, or another form of gender minority, this program is for you,” its application page reads. “If you are a cisgender man, this program isn’t for you.”
The website encourages those who do not meet the qualifications for the program to check out its sister programs, including the Patti Grace Smith fellowship.
YOUNGKIN SEIZES THE MORAL HIGH GROUND ON GENDER IDENTITY AND SCHOOLS
“It’s a shame to see this happen,” Jenner told host John Roberts on his program American Reports on Friday. “It’s been a pattern in just about everything that Joe Biden does. And honestly, it just has to stop.”
Jenner, a biological male who identifies as a woman, transitioned in 2015, becoming one of the most famous athletes to identify as transgender. Jenner went on to criticize the Brooke Owens Fellowship, which the Air Force Academy promoted to its cadets, as a premonition of the effort to “re-segregate the military” similarly to how the branches used to be segregated by race.
“This is about the Left’s division. It’s about identity politics,” Jenner said. “The best way to do diversity training [is to] live in the real world.”
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The program was made in the memory of its namesake, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University graduate Brooke Owens, who died in 2016. It’s run by a volunteer five-member executive team of Owen’s friends, including one man. Since 2018, all of its previous fellows have exclusively been women. Every year, 200 fellows are chosen, with this year’s deadline coming on Oct. 10.
