This article examines the soldiering body in relation to the increasing prevalence of genitourinary injuries in military personnel. Feminist scholars have demonstrated that the idealised masculine soldiering body are central to the workings of international politics. The article shows that US militarised masculinity operates through the selective distribution of bodily capacities. The article draws upon critical disability studies, particularly Jasbir Puar's work on capacity and debility, to argue that treatments for genitourinary injuries revolve around the production of seminal capacity. Queer and trans bodies are debilitated in these arrangements through the denial of heterosexual and cisgender capabilities to them. To unpack this argument the article analyses treatments for genitourinary injuries. The article shows that genitourinary injuries destabilise the gender identity of US service members. Through an exploration of surgical treatments, including penis transplants and reconstructive surgeries, and fertility treatments, the article shows how masculine capacitation is achieved for some US service members through the debilitation of others; in particular, queer and trans bodies, and the bodies of Iraqi and Afghan civilians.

The global coronavirus pandemic has reified divisions, inequity, and injustices rooted in systems of domination such as racism, sexism, neoliberal capitalism, and ableism. Feminist scholars have theorized these interlocking systems of domination as the “continuum of violence.” Building on this scholarship, we conceptualize the U.S. response to and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic as reflective of the continuum of violence. We argue that crises like pandemics expose the antidemocratic and exclusionary practices inherent in this continuum, which is especially racialized and gendered. To support our argument, we provide empirical evidence of the continuum of violence in relation to COVID-19 vis-à-vis the interrelated issues of militarization and what feminists call “everyday security,” such as public health and gender-based violence. The continuum of violence contributes theoretically and practically to our understanding of how violence that the pandemic illuminates is embedded in broader systems of domination and exclusion.

This article assesses the implications of the shifting market-state relationship for feminism in the neoliberal era. In a case study of the private military and security industry as an actor that is uniquely positioned at the intersections of security governance and global markets, the analysis combines feminist security studies’ critique of securitized gender discourses and feminist global political economy scholarship on corporate-led equality initiatives. Based on a critical discourse analysis of documents from industry and nongovernmental organizations, such as codes of conduct and policy recommendations, I argue that the discourses on gender put forward in the context of security privatization merge securitized and marketized discourses to the effect that the emancipatory potential of “gender” is further curtailed, raising new challenges for feminist knowledge in powerful organizations. The article thus contributes to the critical gender research on private security, debates on the neoliberalization and securitization of feminism, and the integration of feminist security studies and feminist global political economy.