Australian navy bars gender-diverse recruits from US submarine training

Defence briefing says US policy blocks the nuclear submarine pathway

Australia has no nuclear submarine fleet of its own, so hundreds of Australian sailors and officers train on US nuclear submarines and at US bases. The defence briefing says that arrangement carries American rules with it: because ADF personnel undertaking duty in the US are required to comply with US policy, transgender and nonbinary ADF personnel and ADF career applicants are currently unable to commence the SSN nuclear submarine training pathway.

“ADF personnel undertaking duty in the US (including training) are required to comply with US policy,” the briefing said. “Consequently, transgender and nonbinary ADF personnel and ADF career applicants are currently unable to commence the SSN [nuclear-powered attack submarines] training pathway.”

The briefing said that while ADF policy on equality and inclusion was unchanged, “US government policy is different.”

At a women in defence event in October, Rear Adm Tish van Stralen — one of the highest-ranking women in the Australian navy — was asked how the defence force was “managing the recruitment of gender-diverse and LGBTQ+ Australians into the nuclear submarine pathway” given the US directive. Van Stralen said the ADF was a diverse and equal opportunity employer, but that potential recruits for the nuclear submarine program were told the ADF was “subject to policies and laws in other countries, so we have to be very mindful.”

“We also have an obligation, a duty of care to our people, so we do not want to put our people into any sort of harm’s way or anything that might adversely affect them,” van Stralen said. “I’m working very closely with navy at the moment and with the submarine agency around the training opportunities because it would be very difficult for me to put a gender-diverse person into that training at the moment.”

Van Stralen said the navy would seek alternative career paths for gender-diverse recruits prohibited from the nuclear submarine program. She said the UK, Australia’s other Aukus partner, had “more liberal policies” and that training opportunities “may arise in the UK.” She added: “We don’t want to disadvantage people because of it but we are subject to the laws and policies of the US when we are in their country.”

Last year the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, issued a directive to his department “to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion offices and initiatives.” Hegseth has also sought to bar transgender personnel from joining the US military and has ordered the removal of transgender personnel from the services. In January 2025, in the first week of his second term as president, Donald Trump signed an executive order that banned transgender service personnel and said gender-diverse people were unfit to serve. Announcing military cuts in September, Hegseth declared that the US military would accept “no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals.”

Under the Aukus agreement, Australia is proposed to buy three Virginia-class nuclear submarines from the US, beginning in 2032. In the lead-up to that, Australian sailors are training onboard US Virginia-class submarines and at US bases, while US-flagged nuclear submarines are porting in Australia. The Guardian reported that finding crews for Australia’s proposed nuclear submarine fleet is likely to prove one of the Aukus agreement’s most critical, sustained challenges. Virginia-class submarines have a complement of 135, more than double the crew for Australia’s diesel-electric Collins-class submarines.

Last week Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, said the Aukus timeline presented the country with a significant “training challenge.” Speaking at HMAS Stirling — the West Australian port through which US nuclear-powered submarines have been rotating — Marles said: “We just need to be training more people and that’s what we’re doing.”

Australia’s defence department did not answer questions from The Guardian about the consequences of adhering to the US policy directive, including how many Australian service personnel have been prevented from undertaking nuclear submarine training. Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine workforce strategy urges defence to “proactively expand the talent pool through active inclusion of underrepresented groups, including women, First Nations Australians, regional communities, and individuals who may not traditionally see themselves in technical or defence-related careers.”