Bulwark Takes - SCOTUS Just Let Trump Fire These Soldiers!

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Tim Miller and Alaina Kupec, founder and President of the Gender Research Advisory Council + Education (GRACE) discuss the military’s trans ban, what’s really behind it, and how these political attacks are already forcing brave, qualified Americans out of service. Learn more about GRACE: https://www.grace-now.org/

Hey everybody, it's Tim Miller from The Bulwark. I'm delighted to be here today with Elena Kupak. She's the founder and president of Gender Research Advocacy Council and Education, short for GRACE, or GRACE is short for that, I guess. She is also a U.S. Navy veteran, served as an intelligence officer in a fighter attack squadron aboard an aircraft carrier. I want to learn more about that, and we also want to talk about this grotesque Supreme Court decision that happened yesterday. So thanks for doing this, Elena. No, thanks, Tim. Pleasure to be here. Well, before we get into the legal stuff, I just would love to hear a little bit about more about your background as a veteran, I guess, where you had you transitioned when you're in the military. Like, just tell us a little bit about your life story.

Sure. So no, I transitioned after I left the military. So to pay for my college, I joined ROTC. And I think a lot of people who go into the military use it as an opportunity to, I think, go places in life they wouldn't have otherwise had the opportunity to do that. And so I joined ROTC and was commissioned straight out of NC State University and then served as an intelligence officer in a Navy F-18 squadron, actually the same squadron that lost an aircraft carrier overboard last week in the Red Sea. And they lost the second one. They did. They did. P-107 is really like, they're on the ball over there. It's just, you know, they're not worried about anything except for, you know, DEI firing generals. Meanwhile, we've got multiple planes falling into the sea. Well, yeah, the irony for me, too, is that I was also the battle group expert on Iran and Yemen when I served.

And so this whole signal gate thing that went down with the SEC death, you know, I was literally the person planning those missions for F-18s, the same type of airplanes that were involved in that attack. And so, you know, it's not lost on me to irony of, it's okay to basically use unsecure communication channels and keep your job. But if you're transgender, you're not fit to serve. So the hypocrisy is really stunning. That's crazy. So you did a couple tours over there?

So no, I served for four years after college. And it was actually, you know, this was the mid-90s. And so I'm dating myself a little bit here. Yeah, I was going to say, you're looking great. Thanks. Well, I have a new lease on life for the last 13 years. But it was during that time, actually, I was on active duty that I literally got our first home computer. And I came to realize that there was a word for how I felt.

And that I wasn't just the only person in the world that felt the way I had my entire life with no explanation. I lived with this shame and guilt and embarrassment and really never told anyone how I felt. But in some ways, it was comforting to realize that, OK, I'm not the only person who feels this way, which was validating in some ways. But, you know, the paradox is this was during Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Right. And I couldn't openly serve knowing that about myself. And I had a top secret plus clearance. And so to keep your clearance, you have to take a polygraph and they ask you a question.

Could anything be used to blackmail you? And having found this out about myself, yet not told anyone, I felt like I couldn't possibly answer that question honestly. And so for me, it meant the decision to have to leave the Navy. And this is the kind of situation, this is what I wanted to get into. It's just like, we're losing folks like yourself. Back then it was, I guess, kind of like a self-deportation, if you will, versus what we're having now with the banning who wanted to serve, had expertise, had capabilities. And just before we get into legal, let's just talk about that part of it.

Like what is lost there? Like there's this perspective, like they want to create a perception that, you know, folks who are trans or women or whatever are not capable of doing these jobs when it's like the opposite is the case. Well, I think that's exactly right. I mean, we've spent hundreds of millions, billions of dollars training these troops and these sailors. They're in commands around the world.

They're in theaters around the world today, defending and protecting our country. And with this ruling, you know, it's going to take them out of their jobs immediately. And so, you know, I think that it's, you know, not getting too much into the courts of this, but when you look at the actual issues, it is pure animus. And I think, how does this make our nation better? How does this make our nation stronger? How does this help put food on the table of everyday Americans? How does this make our country better in any way possible. And I've talked with, I have friends who are serving still, and I've actually talked with a Navy special operator who served alongside someone who was transgender.

And they said that there was nobody they would want to go into battle with more than the person that was transgender. I mean, that's just it. We've heard no complaints from people serving active duty. We've heard no complaints from the commanders of these folks. So this is just a pure arbitrary decision based in discrimination. Have you heard from any of the folks that are being pushed out? There's such deep sadness. These are people who have dedicated their lives to defending our country. Some of them have served for 15, 20 plus years. And they're being told their career is over as of yesterday. They don't have the choice for them to continue to serve. And while these legal cases work their way through with this injunction lifted, they're fired in the meantime. You know, and that's, that's what the heartbreaking thing is. The injunctions allowed these cases to move through the court systems and preserve the damage that would be done by a negative ruling. Now with the removal of that injunction, these

people are effectively fired today. They can't provide for themselves, their families, they're going to lose their health care for what reason? And I think that's the sad part is, you know, if you were to replace transgender with any other class of people based on gender, based on race, based on religion, people would be up in arms. But I think this is a whole narrative of dehumanizing the transgender community and that people don't see this discrimination. It's somehow we're less than because we're transgender. It's okay to do this to people like us,

which is just heartbreaking. Yeah, I am up in arms. It's like, it's insane. The whole thing is just preposterous. You have a draft dodger, someone who literally lied about why he couldn't serve in the military. I didn't serve, by the way, but I understand that that gives me a certain life experience and context that's different.

He dodged the draft. He lied to the military and said he wouldn't serve because he didn't want to do it. He has insulted our troops. Now he's banning people that do want to serve. It's grotesque. I was talking with a friend of mine last night. It's the widow of one of my good friends that, um, I went to, went through ROTC with when I was in ROTC, I was the battalion commander and my executive officer. Um, we were both commissioned at the same time. We served our first six months together in Florida.

And sadly he was killed in the Pentagon on 9-11. And I've done what I can to preserve his memory since his passing. And I was talking with her because the values that we fought for in this country is that everybody has freedom and liberties. And those are being stripped from people. And it might start with transgender people, but make no mistake, it does not end with us. And so I think that's what, you know, people don't see the correlation in these attacks. It's your attack the weak and most vulnerable. And my community does not have a very powerful voice. You know, if you look at the socioeconomic status of most people in the transgender community,

they don't have access to jobs because there's challenges getting identifications, proper identifications. And now we have bills trying to ban people from actually getting the proper identifications, which means they probably can't get access to housing because how can you get a rental agreement if your gender doesn't match your physical presentation? And so I think that's where all these laws serve to dehumanize a class of people that have a very low ability to fight back. And, you know, this starts with us, but it certainly is not going to end with all of us. And all of us as Americans should be very concerned about why

isn't the government getting involved in these issues when they're not solving anything for everyday Americans? So you've referenced this, but just for folks who haven't followed this as closely, just getting the context of where we're at in the legal standing here, that Trump signs an executive order banning transgender folks from serving in the military, something he's flopped back and forth on several times. And then there's a lower court that created like a nationwide injunction blocking the policy while litigation continues. Several trans members of the military were suing the administration over this. So then the administration asked the Supreme Court for emergency requests to lift the injunction. And so that is what the Supreme Court did last night.

They responded to that on a 6-3 vote. They lifted the nationwide injunction. So as you were referencing, Elena, that means that these folks are effectively fired now in the meantime, while the case actually continues to work its way through the courts and it'll go up to the Supreme Court. And in theory, the justices could rule on the actual merits of the case differently than on the injunction.

I wouldn't get anybody's hopes up on that, but that is possible. So that is the state of play. I don't know, is there anything else that I missed there as far as kind of where we're at on the legal elements of this case or on other trans issues that the government's been acting on?

No, I think you captured this case well. I think the other backdrop to this is there's a case in front of the Supreme Court that was argued last fall, the Scrimetti case, which has to do with health care for transgender youth in this country. And that's a case that we expect to get a ruling on by the end of this session. So probably, like most of the cases in this area, probably in the June timeframe. And that case basically robs parents of the right to make a decision about what's in the June timeframe. And, you know, that case basically robs parents of the right to make a decision about what's in the best interest of their children. It puts the government in a decision-maker position about who can receive what type of healthcare. The same

people who were screaming and yelling about being mandated to wear masks during COVID feel it's okay for the government to tell a parent what kind of treatment their child can get over the advice of their doctors who are experts in this topic. So I think that, you know, in both of these cases, you know, it's the case of, for some reason, the politicians have used the transgender community as a political football now for the past nine years. You know, I happen to live in North Carolina during the bathroom bill, and that's when I decided to become public. And, you know, we're an infinitesimal part of the population of this country. And so why these culture wars are brought up, it's not to help everyday people who are struggling with the inflation in this country and struggling with, you know, the economy. These issues are designed to divide our country, not bring us together. And I think that's the sad part of this is, you know, our nation is better when we all come together. And, you know, I think

that that's what's really disappointing to me is that this is self-serving a part of these politicians. And, you know, and it's, I want to be clear, this is not a Republican issue. This is an extreme part of the Republican Party who has taken on these issues and doesn't represent all Republicans. And, you know, I think that's where my hope is that we're exhausting the arguments that people are trying to make here and that America wakes up and sees that, you know, the only people that stand to benefit from this are the wealthy extremists who are trying to push their radical view of what America should be through these attacks. Yeah. Unfortunately, I think that the attacks are going to continue at least in the short term.

We have a fight ahead of us. Is there anything else that Grace is up to that you want to tell people about? Well, I think there's some irony in the fact that yesterday was May the 6th. And so we released the fourth installment of our Just Like You campaign yesterday. And for those that are not familiar, 99.999% of people in the transgender community, May 6th, 1933 is when Nazi students raided the Institute for Sexology in Berlin, basically, which was the world's foremost collection of transgender medical records and how to treat transgender people. They ransacked it and they burned those books in the town square four days later. And that's one of the first acts against trans people and LGB people that we saw in Nazi Germany. And it's ironic to me that the anniversary,

almost 100 years later on May 6th, we see the administration again seeking to erase, eradicate transgender people from society. And so I think it's an opportunity for people to step back and no matter what the issue, to say, is this who we really are as Americans? And for those of us that have grown up only reading about the Holocaust, understanding what took place and wondering how it happened, these are the steps that take place before things like that happen. And we just take a step back and say, is this the kind of country we want to be? And is this who we are? Does this represent our values? And so I think that that's what we try

and do with Grace is just build a bridge. It's okay to not understand who I am and what being transgender is. That's okay. But please respect my right to exist and those like me, our right to exist. And let's have a dialogue and discuss these issues and find what areas where we have common ground. So I think that's really what we're trying to focus on doing. I appreciate that. Thanks so much for coming on the show. It's Elena Kupec from Grace. We'll give a link to the organization here in the show notes. If you want to check it out,

please subscribe to the feed and unfortunately Elena, we might have more chances to talk because I think that these issues are going to be in the news for a little while now. Happy to be of help. Thanks so much, Tim. All right. Thanks everybody.