During a marathon House markup of next year’s mammoth defense policy bill earlier this month, two proposed amendments that failed to make it out of committee tell a story of concern for the future of women in uniform.
The amendments to the Fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, proposed by Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., and Clay Higgins, R-La., both pertain to the implementation of gender-neutral standards as mandated by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
The amendment by Houlahan, an Air Force veteran and advocate for women in combat, would prohibit any service member from being excluded from “an occupational specialty, career field, or assignment on the basis of gender.” It would also keep Hegseth from requiring gender-neutral fitness assessments for troops not in combat roles, and prohibit changes to military fitness requirements, unless supported by “scientific findings establishing that the modified requirements predict the performance of actual, regular, and recurring combat duties of the ground combat roles subject to such modified requirements.”
The amendment offered by Higgins, an Army National Guard veteran, would require sex-neutral, but age-adjusted physical fitness standards for all troops, and mandate unspecified “higher” standards for those in ground combat positions.
The amendments follow Hegseth’s order last September that all the services develop gender-neutral physical fitness standards for all troops in ground combat roles, a move widely seen to be in line with his publicly expressed belief that women should not serve in combat.
“At my direction, each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS [military occupational specialty], for every designated combat arms position, returns to the highest male standard only, because this job is life or death, standards must be met, and not just met — at every level, we should seek to exceed the standard, to push the envelope, to compete,” he told an audience of generals and admirals at Quantico, Virginia, last year.
Though he has since softened his rhetoric, he said as recently as 2024 that women had no place on the front lines.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective,” Hegseth said on a podcast. “Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”
Earlier this year, Undersecretary of War for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata announced a formal review of the effectiveness of women in ground combat jobs, which was reassigned to Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory from the Center for Defense Analyses several months later.
In a committee debate over the proposed amendments, Houlahan highlighted Hegseth’s recent actions and suggested he was laying the groundwork for further moves to limit women’s roles in the military.
“I … really very much believe that we need to stop this, what I believe is a slippery slope and uncertain future, where we know the answer to these questions,” she said. “There are women who are qualified and can meet those very, very high standards to be in those combat-related roles, and they should be allowed to be there. There is a concern that I have, that I think we all should have, that [Hegseth] has asked for yet another study of something we already know.”
Higgins claimed his amendment only buttressed what was already in policy.
“If you’re female in the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps or Space Force, and you want to be on a team, then I want you to be on that team — If you can pass the physical fitness standards that the team establishes for everybody on the team, aside from age-norming,” he said.
In a notable move, Nebraska Republican Don Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general, sided with Houlahan in opposing Higgins’ amendment.
“I served 30 years in the Air Force; I just don’t think it would work to have the same standard and measure men and women with the same physical fitness standards for every job in the Air Force,” he said. “I think it would end up disqualifying a lot of people that … would be unnecessary.”
Houlahan’s amendment failed, in accordance with committee rules, with a 28-28 vote tie; Higgins’s failed 29-25.
Not all lawmakers saw Hegseth’s actions as a threat that needed to be stopped with new legislation, though. Rep. Jennifer Kiggans, R-Va., a former Navy helicopter pilot, voted against both amendments, her “No” vote proving the deciding one against Houlahan’s proposal.
“Under current Department of War policy, servicemembers are eligible to serve in every occupational capacity, regardless of gender,” Kiggans told Military Times in a statement. “Gender-neutral physical standards for ground combat roles were passed 10 years ago, and the bar hasn’t changed. I’m grateful for the leadership of the many amazing women I served with and encourage other young women to pursue the wide variety of careers offered by our great military.”
While the chance that these proposed amendments are brought back up for floor debate in the full House is slim, the Senate version of the NDAA does contain an amendment similar to Houlahan’s by Iowa Republican and Army veteran Joni Ernst, codifying sex-neutral standards for combat jobs only.
Additionally, Houlahan was able to add to the House bill a provision that will require the Pentagon to submit to Congress “the complete, unredacted” review of women’s effectiveness in combat.
The NDAA must still pass the Senate and the House and then undergo version reconciliation in a conference session. The Pentagon-commissioned women in combat review is now expected to be completed by early next year.
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