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/4. Someone in the Air Force or Army was involved, and wanted to make an incredibly mean joke at Navy expense.
Somewhat more steelmanned, there is actually a surprising number of MTF (until very recently, retired-)military personnel, just as there were a number of DADT-era gay military personnel. The Standard Narrative is that some number of internally-gender-nonconfirming people end compensating for it and looking for the Manliest Manly Man thing to do, and for a lot of folk at the lower income levels Joining The Military was one of those things. ((The non-standard version I favor is more than MTF people tend to be a lot more aware of the importance of benefits even before they 'crack the egg', and military benefits are pretty damned good if you can stand dealing with the paperwork.))
But the more plausible explanation for the Navy's recruitment isn't that they expect to (or even want to) get a bunch of trans employees; it's that they see younger generations as being extremely pro-LGBT even if the potential recruits are cis (or otherwise not-definitionally-trans), and they believe a stereotype of military environments as conservative on sexuality-stuff will discourage otherwise marginal potential recruits.
((The really cynical explanation is that this what they were ordered to do, by people who don't particularly care about military recruitment numbers but do care about recruiters that they can't kick off college campuses yet, and as bad as the modern military has gotten, it's still full of people who follow lawful orders even when stupid.))
Wasn't that traced to somewhat liberal usage of steroids and other nice thing in the military.
That's the first time I've heard of that theory, but I'm not really making proposals about what Is, but rather what a well-intentioned bureaucrat could reasonably be acting on.
I don't recall anything conclusive ever having been shown but steroid use was pretty rampant in the 90-era military and a combination of this and the theory that "certain folks were always kind of fucked/compensating for something" theory is pretty widespread on veterans' forums.
Does this theory apply to other environments where steroid usage is rampant, or differentiate the military from them?
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I don't think for a significant number of them being able to perform in drag (or being able to be entertained by drag performers) was a significant factor in deciding whether to join the military. Am I wrong?
I'm sure it's the case on Oberlin campus. Is that actually the case in places where the Navy recruits come from?
That said, benefits - like taxpayer-paid transition costs - may be one factor that I was not including. Something like "come work for the military, and your transition costs would be 100% covered" may be indeed attractive to some. It's probably a very bad deal, cost-wise, for the military, but the military is used to bad deals and runaway costs...
Probably not, but as costly signals go, this is a personally-inexpensive one that looks pricey.
((Which also applies to the military-broad costs. VA and MEPS and recruiting don't exactly share priorities, famously.))
That's a fun and complicated question! If your datum class is "younger people", it's easy to get one answer; if it's "poor people", another; if you try searching for self-identified patriots, a third.
I'm not claiming it's true, just that it's plausible and not so stunningly incompetent as to hit category 1.
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