Don’t ask, don’t tell seems to have a whole new meaning in the military now.

The prevalence of sexual assaults in the U.S. military is only getting worse, with service members expressing limited confidence in the system to bring perpetrators to justice, according to the Pentagon’s latest annual report on the issue, released Thursday. 

The Defense Department’s (DOD) report on sexual assault in the military found that reports of such assaults in the ranks rose significantly in 2021, about 13 percent over the previous year. 

And that’s after all the supposed work the brass put in to transform the whole handling of the issue.

What’s more, 8.4 percent of female service members had unwanted sexual contact in 2021, the highest rate since the department began tracking figures in 2006. For men, it was at 1.5 percent, the second-highest figure since 2006. 

The actual report drills down further to reveal that 91% of women identified their offenders.

46% of men identified the offenders as men and another 30% as women.

The report states that, “In FY21, 29 percent of women and 7 percent of men indicated experiencing sexual harassment.”  

“About 40 percent of women and nearly one-third of men experienced sexual harassment by the same alleged offender before their experience of sexual assault.”

Gender and sexual diversity doesn’t seem to be working very well. Or perhaps working exactly as everyone said that it would.