Netflix’s new LGBTQ+ centric military series “Boots” has gotten a major thumbs down from the Pentagon.
The show, which premiered on the streaming platform on Oct. 9, follows the story of Cameron Cope (Miles Heizer), a bullied and closeted gay teenager who joins the Marines with his best friend (Liam Oh) during a time when being openly gay was forbidden. Vera Farmiga also stars in the series — which was inspired by Greg Cope White’s memoir “The Pink Marine” — as Cope’s mother.
On Oct. 16, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson issued a statement to Entertainment Weekly about the Department of Defense’s opinion on the title.
“Under President Trump and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth, the U.S. military is getting back to restoring the warrior ethos. Our standards across the board are elite, uniform, and sex neutral because the weight of a rucksack or a human being doesn’t care if you’re a man, a woman, gay, or straight,” Wilson’s statement begins.
She continued to note that officials “will not compromise our standards to satisfy an ideological agenda, unlike Netflix whose leadership consistently produces and feeds woke garbage to their audience and children.”
Hegseth, the current Secretary of War, has faced significant backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates for his views. In June, the former Fox News host ordered the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, stripping the ship of the name of the slain LGBTQ+ rights activist who served as a sailor during the Korean War.
The month before, during a keynote address at Special Operations Forces Week 2025, he demanded, “No more pronouns. No more climate change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates. No more dudes in dresses; we’re done with that.” Hegseth has also supported Trump’s transgender military ban.
“Boots” premiered in Netflix’s top 10 shows globally, garnering over 4.7 million views during its first week. As of Oct. 18, it is the third-most-watched show on Netflix.
The series is set in the 1990s, around the time the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was instituted, which allowed gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals to serve in the military as long as they did not disclose their sexual orientation publicly. The policy also prohibited commanding officers from questioning service members about their sexual orientation. Those who were openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual were barred from military service.
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