The US Navy Is About to Launch a Submarine Built for a Mixed-Gender Crew, the First of Its Kind

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A submarine designed to fully integrate male and female sailors is set to join the US fleet on Saturday.

The USS New Jersey "is the first Virginia-class submarine designed and built for a full gender integrated crew," according to Naval Sea Systems Command.

Delivered last April after eight years of construction, it will enter active service on September 14, following a ceremony at Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey.

A long-standing ban on women serving aboard US submarines was lifted in 2010, and as of 2023 there were 609 women assigned to submarines in operation, per the US Naval Institute.

"The submarine community is a fully gender-integrated warfighting force," said Vice Admiral Robert Gaucher, commander of Submarine Forces Atlantic, according to Stars and Stripes.

Gaucher added, per the outlet, that all future nuclear-powered attack submarines and all new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines are to be designed "gender-neutral from the keel up."

For the New Jersey, that meant adjusting many details, from the height of overhead valves to the privacy of washrooms and berths, the outlet reported.

Since admitting women onto submarines, the US Navy has faced the challenge of retrofitting and reorganizing vessels for co-ed use.

Last year, the Navy announced plans to expand the number of submarines taking on co-ed crews from 30 to 40, the Navy Times reported.

Lieutenant Commanders Andrea Howard and Emma McCarthy, who joined the influx of women to the fleet, wrote last year about the adjustments needed — both physical and social — in integrating them on ships designed for all-male crews.

Space is tight, and the distribution of bathrooms and berths doesn't always match the crew's needs, they wrote.

"The number of women on board often does not conform to three- or six-man rack configurations," they said.

Similar issues apply to the washrooms, with some crews dividing up the space and others deciding to use them in all-male and all-female blocks.

"Transit to and from these spaces for showering also warrants an unambiguous, uniform standard for decency," they said.

But the physical arrangement of a submarine was only part of the issue — the workplace culture also needed to adapt, they said.

"Crew reactions ranged from treating the women the same, to making the experience awkward (knowingly or unwittingly), to showing disinterest in helping or—at worst—actively subverting," they wrote.

The first influx of female junior officers also drew sometimes awkward curiosity from male crew members, they said.

"A fishbowl effect developed any time one of the first female junior officers did something for the first time," they wrote.

The USS New Jersey is the 23rd Virginia-class submarine and the third Navy vessel to be named after the state. In 1900, New Jersey was the site of the construction of the first-ever US submarine.