The executive arm of the U.S. intelligence community, which includes the CIA and several top military spy agencies, recently circulated a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) newsletter that features a secret agent who reveals he is a cross-dresser.
According to a Fox News Digital review of the document, the internal newsletter, The Dive, highlighted several left-wing initiatives and was circulated throughout the U.S. spy apparatus by the Intelligence Community Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Office.
It is housed in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), a Cabinet-level position that oversees the intelligence community. The document's theme is "the importance of words," focusing on ways spy agencies can be more inclusive.
"This issue of The Dive highlights some … initiatives to improve the accuracy of the language we use on other topics; these are a sampling and are not comprehensive of all the great work being done across our agencies," the newsletter's unnamed editor-in-chief wrote in the document.
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"This edition also has articles that speak to inclusivity more broadly, exploring gender identity, advances in accessibility, and diversity in leadership."
The newsletter includes six articles — one about changing terminology related to counterterrorism, one about "linguistics diversity," another about reimagining how "we talk about Africa," a fourth highlighting an intelligence officer's gender expression, one about accessibility in the combat zone and a final article about the 6th Annual African American & Hispanic Leadership Summit.
The first article features the perspective of an intelligence official who notes how some training and presentations previously conflated Islamic beliefs with terrorism. The author states that such a use of language "is offensive and alienates our Muslim-American colleagues."
The author further details an effort to revise intelligence presentations to weed out problematic language.
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A similar effort is separately highlighted by the newsletter's editor-in-chief, who explains how new Asian and Pacific Islander employee resource groups have been successful in "creating a new framework and language guidelines for how we talk about the People's Republic of China."
The article about "linguistics diversity" includes a chart of examples of removing biased language. It says officials should refrain from using the term "blacklisted" because it implies "black is bad and white is good," the terms "cakewalk" or "grandfathered" because of their ties to slavery and the term "sanity check" because it suggests people with mental illness are inferior.
The article about gender identity is written by an anonymous intelligence officer who says cross-dressing has sharpened his skills.
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"I am an intelligence officer, and I am a man who likes to wear women’s clothes sometimes," the author wrote. "I think my experiences as someone who crossdresses have sharpened the skills I use as an intelligence officer, particularly critical thinking and perspective-taking.
"It is challenging for some people to understand crossdressing, and non-binary or genderfluid people because gender is a part of overall identity," he added. "Many of us think of our identities as fixed, and some find this approach to gender threatening to their own identity."
The officer said cross-dressing has helped him understand foreign actors, clandestine assets and how to better support his female and LGBTQIA+ colleagues.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, the ODNI confirmed its efforts to "build a diverse and inclusive workforce" through the newsletter.
"The Intelligence Community Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Office manages the IC's efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workforce, and as part of their work, they distribute The Dive, a quarterly magazine, to each IC element's DEIA office and/or Equal Employment Opportunity office," an ODNI spokesperson said.
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The newsletter was first received via public information request by the Daily Wire and later obtained by Fox News Digital. In producing the document, ODNI redacted the names of all the newsletter's authors, citing confidentiality and personal privacy exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act.
In response to the document, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a member of the Armed Services Committee, questioned the Biden administration and the intelligence community's priorities.
"The Biden administration putting DEI above national security is deeply concerning," Cotton told Fox News Digital in a statement. "Intelligence officers should spend their time finding terrorists, not worrying about whether they will offend them."
And Jeremy Hunt, a former Army intel officer and the chairman of the national security-focused group Veterans On Duty, expressed concern about the newsletter's emphasis on altering language to make the intelligence community more inclusive.
"Rather than our primary focus being on protecting the homeland, these absurd attempts to police the language of intelligence assessments to make them politically correct will undoubtedly result in lower quality, imprecise and confusing intelligence reports that leave lawmakers and decision makers less informed and unable to make reasoned judgments," Hunt said.
