Back in January, just days after returning to office, President Trump signed an executive order reinstating his 2017 ban on transgendered people serving in the military. While the ban was temporarily blocked by a federal judge in March, the Supreme Court ruled the administration could move forward with the ban in May. Since then, more than 1,000 transgender service members have been removed from duty, and more face the same fate.
Colonel Bree Fram is an astronautical engineer, author, podcaster, and she served in the U.S. Air Force for 18 years before transitioning into the Space Force, where she became one of the highest-ranking openly transgender members of the military.
She joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath about her personal experience with the ban. She was speaking for herself and her views do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense or the United States government. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: First, can you tell us your current status? Have you been fully discharged?
Col. Bree Fram: For anyone to leave the military, there’s a lot of processes legally required for us before we go. So, because we’ve entered this period where people are expected to adhere with sex assigned at birth standards, for those of us where we can’t, we have been placed in many cases on administrative leave where our only duties are to accomplish those legally mandated requirements to be processed out of service, and that’s where I find myself having served my final day officially on duty on the 6th of June.
Rath: And when you’re processed out, is it an honorable discharge, or what is your status then?
Fram: Well, I expect to get an honorable discharge and a retirement myself, but that’s one of the remaining open questions because the policy says that people will get an Honorable Discharge unless their records indicate otherwise. And we can certainly get into the difference between what has been labeled a voluntary process for those that identified themselves prior to that 6th of June, and what is going to happen for those that did not. That gets identified in this involuntary phase. But I wanna be very clear, neither of those things are a choice. No one would be choosing to leave. We are all being forced out. If we truly had the opportunity, we would all be continuing to serve because this is the career, this is the profession, these are the people we have chosen to spend our lives with. So there’s a lot of unknowns about what happens. And how people actually will be discharged from the service.
Rath: I want to talk about these lives, and starting off with your life in particular. You were a colonel in the Space Force. It just sounds, as we were talking about before we started, I’m a space geek. That just sounds like the most awesome thing in the world. Tell us about your job before what happened.
Fram: The Space Force was created, and I got my invitation to join. To me it felt like a marriage proposal where I was so excited I just wanted to say “yes, yes, a thousand times yes,” because it was the culmination of several lifelong dreams for me — not just to do this work that is so important to our nation to protect and defend our modern way of life to ensure that should conflict extend into space, that we’re there to win. Also, to be part of a new military service. That’s not an opportunity that comes around more than perhaps once every several generations. And I did get to be there from the beginning to help build that 21st-century military culture. That was incredible. And it has been my honor to work with so many enthusiastic, dedicated professionals — that I care about our future, that I want to ensure that we can live the lives of freedom and opportunity that we have, and also work on the technology that we get to and define what that future looks like. All of those things excite me and keep me passionate through all my years of service.
Rath: What did your work in particular as an aeronautical engineer ... what did you focus on?
Fram: Well, throughout my career, I had the opportunity to do so many incredible things. And a few of those that I’m most proud of were taking lifesaving technology, truly directly from the laboratory to the battlefield whether that was early in my career when I deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and we detected IEDs through some novel technologies that allowed our soldiers to do route planning and remain safe, to more recently, that I worked with, developed counter-drone technologies and we took those right to the battlefield and protected people. Or to have developed missile warning satellites, where we used that several years ago to provide advance notice of some missiles launched from Iran that allowed our troops to take cover and keep safe prior to the impact of those missiles. So those are just some of the things that I’ve had the opportunity to do, along with a whole host of other technology development and spacecraft development programs, and now more recently to build the policy for how we acquire systems, to work on requirements for what is it our future systems are going to need to do in space. It has been an honor to be a part of that and help define the future.
Rath: I’m just sitting here, my eyes are widening. I almost can’t believe how important all the things that you just laid out that you worked on are, my head is spinning.
Fram: Well, it has been something that has been enjoyable for me. It has been incredibly meaningful to do this work that I know will not only help keep people safe, but also protect our national security and send that important deterrent signal that it is not worth getting in a conflict with the United States, because not only is our equipment so amazing, so are our people. And we, by inviting in the best and the brightest, extend that opportunity and make sure that we’re able to keep doing that now and far into the future. So that’s what really has me worried about where we find ourselves today. That we are turning away people who may have the brain power that will revolutionize the way we fight in cyberspace, in space, or in any other battlefield. And we’re saying there is something immutable about you that says you shouldn’t serve, despite the evidence that has been here for the past decade that says, you can. And that hurts. It hurts because of the impact it has on individuals, on the people that we’ve served with, and also to our national security going forward.
Rath: When did you come out, and how did your colleagues react?
Fram: Well, I came out in 2016 on the day the ban on transgender service dropped for the very first time. And I was still in the Air Force at the time, but I was on my first tour at the Pentagon. I was a major, and I thought about going down and listening to the Secretary of Defense announce the end of the ban, but I thought better of it. And when he finished speaking and said, we can serve openly, I had an email that was ready to go to my colleagues and a Facebook post coming out to the world. But I still hesitated, wondering about if I send this, how is my life going to change? Eventually, though, I did get the courage. I hit post, I hit send, and then I ran away. I found the gym buried underneath the Pentagon. I hopped on the elliptical machine. But when I returned to my desk, I sat down, and one by one, my colleagues walked over to me. And said, it’s an honor to serve with you. And they shook my hand. And I was floored because the honor was truly all mine.
Rath: As I said in the introduction, there have been around a thousand people so far who have been removed from duty. We don’t know how many more will be. You’re obviously very high profile. I’m wondering if you can give us a sense of what this means for the people who are being forced out. What’s next for you? What’s next for them when you are thrown out of a job– life?
Fram: Well, that’s the million-dollar question because lives are being upended and disrupted in nearly unimaginable ways. Nobody planned for this. People just wanted to continue serving. So the circumstances are gonna vary from individual to individual, but everyone has to figure out what is best for them and their family. Will they move? What sort of employment will they look for? Will the benefits ... That they believed would be there for them, actually be there. As for me, while I’m taking off my boots, I’m gonna trade them for footwear that is more appropriate for a different battlefield. I am still called to service. So there’s a lot, but I have two degrees that this nation has paid for. I have a lifetime of experience in problem-solving and running large organizations. I will find something that fits. But I do worry about all the others who have done absolutely nothing wrong and thrived in difficult circumstances, who now find themselves looking for what’s next.
Rath: And on the other side of things, thinking about the services and the country, I don’t want to sound editorial, but as a citizen, hearing that someone who works on anti-drone technology or advanced spacecraft or any of the other dozen things you listed off that is not working for the US anymore, and you’re one of maybe 1,000 or more stories like that, what does it mean not just for the Space Force, but the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard?
Fram: There are thousands and thousands of transgender service members in every specialty, every branch of service that were here at home and deployed around the world doing their missions. And that collective loss is what we really need to be concerned about. The impact to our readiness as a military today and the ripple effects that that is going to have because the vast majority of us. We’re senior leaders who not only were technical specialists, but we were also there training and developing the next generation of leaders who were going to take our place. There’s also the impact of all the people who have served with us, who now look around and see that emptiness in their unit that used to be filled by a capable, competent person. They have to work twice as hard to fill that gap, and they also wonder who might be next.
