Bulwark Takes - Bulwark on Sunday: The Persecution of Trans Americans

Episode Date: August 24, 2025

Bree Fram joins Bill Kristol to discuss the escalating attacks on transgender Americans—from the removal of federal health care benefits to subpoenas for hospital records and even reports of the Department of Justice searching VA files for evidence of transition. What does this mean for trans service members and for the broader assault on trans lives? Support Bree and her work at https://militarytransrights.org and https://breefram.com

I'm Bill Crystal here with Sunday Bullwark. I'm very pleased to be joined live today by Prefram, Colonel in the United States Air Force. I guess now maybe in the Space Command. Is that right? Did I correct that? Space Force for the past four years. I can't even adjust to these new names.

I'm sure that was true earlier in the Air Force days, right, where it was like the US Army Air Force or something. And they said, no, it's an Army Air Corps, then the Air Force. It's an independent command. Brie's had a very distinguished two decades of service in Iraq and many other places and many different roles in the Air Force. You're an engineer, but now you are leaving, I guess, the military on involuntary, not as you would have, not as you wished to. And you were a victim of the, I guess it's an executive order or anyway, the Dictot from on high that banning or separating. any transgender service member from serving.

So tell me a little bit, I'm curious about just your history in the military and then let's get to the current situation. Yeah, it is strange now being on administrative leave, just waiting for the final eyes to be crossed and the T's to be dotted as I hope to be allowed to retire at the end of the year, but right now doing nothing, though I'm still active service member subject to the UCMJ, so it's important. to note that I'm here with you in my personal capacity and my views do not necessarily reflect

those of the Department of Defense or the United States government, which will probably be quite obvious as we talk through this. But just the very quick snapshot of my career, yes, I've been in over 22 and a half years. I graduated from college in 2001 with no intention of serving, but we were attacked. And that was my turn to give back, to be part of something greater than myself to defend those freedoms and opportunities that men like my grandfathers who were heroes as immigrants and refugees that fought in World War II did amazing things. I wanted to carry on that legacy and to help defend our nation. And I served 18 years in the Air Force before switching over to the Space

Force and was afforded incredible opportunities to include coming out as trans in 2016 after 13 years of service and serving the rest of my career authentically and it was such a gift. And I hope we get to get into some of that, some amazing kind of bookends to my authentic service, and what that meant about the changing military and what it means what our country is going through right now, as you mentioned, particularly for us starting off with that executive order, which was prioritizing military excellence and readiness. wow give me i'm curious about your maybe you've mentioned this just now as i say i missed about half a minute of what you're saying but the um the experience of coming out in 2016 you've

you've been spoken about that and just how was how did that go how did the military treat you how did your colleagues take it what lessons should we learn from that it was an experience that shocked me because i was in my first tour at the pentagon i was a major at the time and I knew the Secretary of Defense was going to make the announcement that trans people could serve openly. And when he finished speaking, I had an email ready to go to my colleagues and a Facebook post coming out to the world. Because prior to that, had anyone known, and that word got back to someone, I would have lost my career at that time 13 years for something that had nothing to do with my ability to serve. But he wrapped up, said, as of now, trans folks can serve openly.

I was a little afraid, so I paused for a moment and then hit send, hit post, and ran away. Went to the gym, buried underneath the Pentagon, got on the elliptical machine, and I went nowhere faster than I'd ever gone anywhere in my life, thinking, how is my life going to be different? But when I got back to my desk, I sat down, and one by one, my colleagues walked over to me, shook my hand, and said, it's an honor to serve with you. And I was floored, because the honor was mine. I served with incredible people and we knew instinctively that we had one another's back when the chips were down and we had to work incredibly hard. So to be able to do that openly and instead of spending time and energy protecting my identity, I could rededicate that into the mission and the relationships around me and it made me a better leader, a better friend, a better service member.

And I think when we take that all the way to its conclusion, which is during my last week, I was back again. I'm serving as the Pentagon, now as a colonel. And I think it's important to note that when I would walk into a room, the first thing people see is not that I'm trans. They see a kernel. They see my uniform. They see what that represents the responsibility that it conveys.

And I'm going to these final meetings, knowing that the end is coming. where I'm being placed on administrative leave. And I sit in a meeting with a bunch of senior admirals and generals on the joint staff. And at the end of the meeting, they go around the room and I'm the last one to talk. And they say, anything from you, Space Force? Yes, here's one work-related update.

And also, I'm sorry, this is going to be my last meeting. It's an unexpected departure. I do not know when we're going to have a replacement. And the officer sitting next to me says, oh, why? Where are you going? What assignment did you get? I'm like, well, I'm sorry, I don't meet this administration's standards for military excellence and readiness. And it took a moment as kind of faces in the room dropped, and that scene from 2016 repeated.

But this time it was admirals and generals getting up, walking over, and with sadness in the twinge of past tense that was in the words, they said, it's been an honor to serve with you. And I walked out of that room with tears in my eyes, departing the Pentagon for the final time, several days later, wearing my uniform. That's amazing. And in the, I guess what would have been eight years, eight plus years, that you served from 2016 to 2025, were there issues, problems? Was it pretty, I mean, how did it just go sort of day-to-day week-to-week for you?

None whatsoever, no issues. I believe I became a better officer and a better leader. I had the full support of the people that I had the privilege of working for. My colleagues were fantastic. And the people that I had the honor of lead were wonderful. In fact, the day I finally came to the office as myself, my team had changed the nameplate on my door. We had cookies in my office and took a bunch of pictures together with everyone smiling.

It was phenomenal. And I think that experience was widely replicated. throughout the military because what do we care about? It's, do we look to our left, we look to our right, do you have my back? Are you here for the right reasons? And we have proved over and over again that we're capable of accomplishing the mission and so we were trusted to do that. And again, I think people really became stronger at what they did

because all we were doing was reaching for our best selves. That's what transition was for us. It was being the best version of ourselves we could be and rededicating that into the relationships we had and the mission in front of us. I want to get to the present and the, I guess, future now and in a minute and sort of how others in your situation, what the situation is more broadly in the military and the beyond the military, obviously, in the pretty widespread assault, I would say, on trans folks by this second Trump term. But, of course, you served through the first Trump term. I mean, there were one or two moments, I believe, where Trump said he was going to try to separate people who had transitioned and so forth,

or who were trans, or just what was that? I mean, how different was that? I mean, how difficult was that? How worried, how seriously did people take that? As I recall, Mattis stepped up pretty quickly to slap that down, but anyway, you were there. You would remember it so well. It was pretty wild, and there are some significant differences

between what happened the first time around and what's happening this time. In 2017, first of all, it was a complete shock. I was in fact on my last day of leave with some high school friends. We were gathered around a lake in northern Minnesota and enjoying a beautiful morning. And my phone started blowing up. I'm like, oh my God, what happened?

Because this was the time when we were arguing about whose button was bigger to launch nuclear missiles. And I'm like, are we going to war with North Korea? Is that what happening? But no, it turns out the president had tweeted that morning, that there was something the United States government could neither accept nor allow. And then after a 10-minute pause where everyone wondered, is it the North Koreans? Are we going to war? Well, no, it's just that trans people are such a burden and a disruption

on the military that we can't possibly have them serving. So first, you're like, is a tweet an order? Is this policy? What do we do? And it was the first time where we kind of had to to formulate that what can we do? And the only answer was, lace up our boots, go to work, and accomplish the mission that we've been given, prove again and again that we belong. And we did so. Public opinion changed dramatically all of a sudden

because of the two months after that, we got the media spotlight that showed us accomplishing the mission here at home and around the world. But that tweet did eventually turn into policy. It's challenged by the courts, the Supreme Court allowed it to go into effect. But in essence, it was a ban. It made it so that no new trans people could come into the military, and no one who hadn't come out while that previous policy was in place

would be allowed to transition or receive care. So for me and about 1,600 others, there was an exemption that allowed us to continue serving. What's so dramatically different this time around is that it's both that ban component and a purge. And the ban, and the ban, if I could, is, this is, by the time it gets to the courts, this is what, 2019-ish, I suppose, and then the Biden administration reverses that, am I right? You are exactly right.

The ban itself lasted only about a year. Before Biden administration reverses it, you have thousands more trans-service members out at this point, where you see, instead of this bolt out of the blue, now it's like a hurricane forming offshore and you're just wondering how big is it going to be and where is it going to hit? Because there's $200 million spent on anti-trans advertising in the last couple weeks of the campaign, even before inauguration. The president says he's going to end the transgender lunacy on day one. And that hurricane really arrived in that executive order prioritizing military excellence and readiness.

And there are some things in it that make me laugh. those in general is the argument that we are too strong for sports, but too weak for the military. But the executive order was really an attack on our character. It said that we were undisciplined, dishonorable liars who lack the humility required for military service. And it's the humility piece that really gets me because I'd ask anyone who's listening, like, have you ever met a pilot? And have you ever met a military pilot? Because the first will tell you there are a pilot in the first 10 seconds they talk to you, and the military pilots will tell you they are the greatest pilot in the world in that 10 seconds.

And is that humility? No, but do we want them to be humble? Absolutely not. If you are going to launch yourself at the tip of the spear in a $100 million aircraft, I want you to be a badass. And they are. So it's just funny that that was one of the arguments that we're not humble enough. But in many aspects, I'd argue that we are because we are the people that are humble enough to put on the cloth of our nation, to follow the orders of those appointed above us

and the president and to carry out missions that are incredibly dangerous at times. And we are willing to make that sacrifice on behalf of others. I guess it's striking that they went to that general argument, if you want to call it an argument or a set of assertions that they thought, I suppose might be more defensible in court because how do you falsify something like that? It's just a, you know, claim about people's, generic claim about people's character, a certain group's character, I guess. It's not, but what struck me at the time just as it's not based on any claim even of evidence. You know, we've done studies or studies have shown that it's very disruptive to, you know, group cohesion or military, you know,

there are things one could have said, and it were said in the past, actually, against integrating various groups all the way back to African Americans and, you know, way, way back and pretty way back. And, of course, women and gays and so forth. But they didn't even try to make the kind of, did they, I mean, the pseudo-military readiness arguments. It is in that way just a pure assault on trans people as trans people. Yeah, the same arguments were made as you mentioned as were levied against African-Americans, against women, against lesbians, gays, and bisexuals,

and every time those groups prove them false, just as trans service members have over these nine years of us serving openly and authentically. And there are so many disconnects between any of the logic presented by the government that when these policies did become challenged in court, again, you had two district court judges, basically flatly rejecting them on the face of it saying,

there is nothing here but animus, It is in fact the service records of the members that were the plaintiffs that were exhibit A as to why these claims were provably false. And even then, though despite attacking character based on transgender status, the government made it about gender dysphoria, which is a medical condition that all of us

were required by the government to have on our records should we need to access transition within the military. It was forced, upon all of us and then they say well it's a medical condition we're kicking you out over but we're going to take you to an administrative separation board with no course to go through the medical evaluation no individualized evaluation and a presumption basically of guilt with no due process so there's all sorts of changes that are coming there's policy being made up there's new ways to push people out of service.

The concept even of administrative leave was brand new for the military just for these people where when the judge questioned the government in one of the cases, they said, if these people are such a problem, who are they? And the response was, we don't know, we're gonna have to go through medical records to find them. Well, that's it.

I hadn't quite realized the medical thing was how they tried to sort of speak navigate the legal situation, I guess. the, you know, a medical condition that, as you say, they required people to assert to get treatment, right? Correct. So let's, so how many, what's happening? I mean, you and you, you've mentioned your administrative lead. You're maybe the most high-ranking person or one of the most high-ranking who's been identified, at least,

and as being purged here from the military, but how many of you are there? What are your peers saying? How are they behaving? What's actually going to happen? I think we're in a period that is really damaging to our national security because there are thousands of trans service members. One of the things we can point to, though, is we don't actually know how many of us there are. The department reported over 4,000, but there's all sorts of different things on medical records that may lead to this. And we were, in fact, prohibited from self-identifying.

Just like after Don't Ask, Don't Tell ended, the government said, you can't even identify if you're lesbian, gay, or bisexual, because that's a personal and a private matter, and maybe it'll be used against you in the future. But it was a challenge for us along the way, because whenever we said, here's how we can make policy better, people are facing negative outcomes, or there's an administrative burden on commanders or doctors

for executing this policy, we would say, we would get asked, show me the data. And I would say, I can't. I can only give you anecdotes. And so we wanted to be able to be counted, but haven't been able to. In any case, it's thousands. There's no perfect estimate. A lot of studies in the past have said around 15,000. Could be more or less than that, but that's a reasonable number to think of. As for what's happening, many of us are on administrative leave, like I am, waiting final separation or retirement. There are others that are going through this involuntary process where basically they're saying, hey, government, come find me. And they have to do that digging through medical records or during an annual review. And in some cases, commanders are basically authorized to go looking for these people.

If you find someone who said something on social media or if someone you believe exhibits the symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria, you can point them out and direct them to a medical evaluation to get identified. And I think that's particular dangerous because that opens up a lot of charges against women in particular. If you don't think this woman fits the definition, the classic definition of femininity, well, maybe she's a man. and you need to figure that out. Maybe she's a trans person. I think it's dangerous to unit cohesion, honestly, when people are on the lookout for others. And it perpetuates some really damaging stereotypes

across the board of who trans people are, who people in the military are, and it's frightening, honestly. And the relevant people in command, or they feel they just have...