“Becoming a man? What does that actually mean?” That’s the question posed at the start of Boots , Netflix’s new queer coming-of-age series set in a Marine Corps training program, but also one essentially posed by our new so-called Secretary of War Pete Hegseth just last week . Yet while Hegseth, onstage before the nation’s top military brass , tried to answer the question with chest-beating machismo, insisting on “the highest male standard” and decrying “beardos” and “males who think they’re females,” only Boots arrives at a coherent answer.

In an incredible bit of timing, Boots is also set in 1990—the year to which Hegseth said he wants to wind back military training and standards , declaring current guidelines “woke garbage.” The series, which began streaming on Thursday, fo

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