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Joshua Kelley, whose stage name is Harpy Daniels, hails from Berwick and identifies as non-binary.
The self-proclaimed "sailor queen" is a 2nd class petty officer and among five non-compensated DAs appointed by the Navy in is pilot program, which ran from October 2022 through March 2023.
While the pilot program sparked outrage from conservatives amid a broader gender battle within the armed forces, the Navy told Fox News Digital that it was designed to "reach a wide range of potential candidates" in a particularly challenging recruiting environment.
Last February, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and U.S. Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) introduced legislation to "regulate" transgender military service.
“The military has strict standards for who can and cannot qualify to serve," Rubio said. "For example, under President Biden, you can’t serve with a peanut allergy. Biden has turned our military into a woke social experiment.
"It is a stupid way to go about protecting our nation. We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter threats like China, Russia, and North Korea and less time thinking about pronouns."
The bill sparked outrage and prompted House Democrats' counter-legislation, designed to block the US Defense Department from transgender military discrimination.
Kelley is proud to have been chosen for the program and shared their journey on social media.
"From joining to 2016 and being able to share my drag experience on my off time with my fellow sailors has been a blessing," they write. "This experience has brought me so much strength, courage and ambition to continue being an advocate and representation of queer sailors!"
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