It’s official — the visibly gender-neutral Navy has arrived.
Service officials today released a sweeping Navy administrative message to announce the fleet introduction of new uniform items, lay out a timetable, with specific dates, for the introduction of other highly anticipated uniforms, redesignate a pair of covers as unisex, and expand the handbag policy.
Starting immediately, female chiefs and officers will be able to wear the male-style combination cover, the start of a yearlong phase-in of the item. Next spring, the shift to another unisex cover will begin as female E-6s and below start wearing the enlisted white hat known as the “Dixie cup.”
By the fall of 2016, male and female recruits at boot camp will be issued new service dress blues. The introduction of the female version of the “crackerjacks” signals the beginning of the end for the jacket-and-tie dress blues for female petty officers and junior sailors.
