Transgender Colonel Bree Fram: ‘Every day I can wear my uniform is a gift’

Colonel Bree Fram opens the front door in a sleeveless shirt, blue pants and pink socks, the same color as her nail polish. The camera of the doorbell has already informed her that someone has been spotted at the front of the house. « I have not yet feared for my immediate physical safety, » she later says at her round kitchen table. « But because of the hate emails, the phone calls, the people who tell me that I have to commit suicide – and the police who can’t do anything with that until someone threatens to kill me himself – we have created something of security. »

Fram (46) lives with her wife, two teenage children and three cats in Reston, Virginia, a suburb of the Pentagon. After almost two decades at the Air Force, with broadcasts to Iraq and Qatar, she is now working on the American strategy and technology for the future struggle in and around space. As a child she got so fascinated by Rigid trait That she decided to study air and space technology. The establishment of Space Force, in 2019 under President Donald Trump, was « a dream come true. » Thanks to Trumps return to the White House, she has now ended up in a nightmare.

A week after his inauguration, Trump decided per presidential decree that « the medical and mental limitations of individuals with gender dysphoria » would disqualify them for military service. He also wrote them morally. « The adoption of a gender identity that is not in line with someone’s gender, clashes with (…) the humility and selflessness that is expected from a soldier. »

Fram is angry and sad that Trump poses this, « Despite a decade in which thousands of people have achieved and surpassed all the requirements. Show us which standards we do not meet. Show us the substantiation for the statement that we are unpremeded or otherwise unable to lead the lifestyle that is not a single proof for it. »

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court Defense Minister Pete Hegseeth gave permission at the beginning of this month to dismiss transgender soldiers, even before the constitutionalness of Trumps discriminatory decree has been tested. Fram must be within thirty days and thousands of others ‘Voluntary’ leave the American armed forces to get honorable dismissal. Sanctions can follow after 6 June. « From one day to the next, soldiers who are selected, trained and inspected to perform a mission is told that they cannot be used. Some when they were deployed on the battlefield. »

Undesirable

Many transgender men and women, plus soldiers who identify themselves as non-binary, have already left. « I understand that people feel that they can no longer continue when the country they serve says: you are undesirable. And we don’t know what happens when the thirty days pass. « Every day that I can wear my uniform is a gift. Not just to do my work, but because it gives me the chance to change someone’s perception of what a trans person can be changed. »

Opinions about transgender people have shot back and forth in the US in recent years. When Fram grew up as a boy in Minnesota, studied and registered at the Air Force a week after the 11 September attacks, she only knew transsexuality of television. Fram: « They were bad people, scammers in films, caricatures who tackled each other in talk shows like Jerry Springer. » Although she would like to be a woman, and sometimes secretly wore a dress, she did not identify herself in any way.

She didn’t hide her wish when she got to know her girlfriend – her current wife. Gradually more and more other loved ones knew about it. But at work she always had to keep it secret until nine years ago. « I was not my true self. I knew that if I would reveal that I was trans, I would lose the opportunity to serve my country. To do something that had nothing to do with my capacities to serve my country. »

Show us which standards we do not meet

In 2011, President Barack Obama took the so -called ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ‘-Policy. That dictated for decades that homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals could be military, as long as they kept their sexual preference and hid their loved ones hidden. The existence of Trans Persons was only accepted five years later, in 2016.

Heart -warming response

Bree Fram knew on which day the highest American soldier would announce that she too was officially welcome – could be herself. She had prepared a ‘out of the cupboard’ mail to colleagues and a Facebook message. Immediately after the policy change, she clicked on ‘Send’ and ‘Post’. « Then I fled to the gym to control my nerves about the reactions on the cross trainer. » They were overwhelming. Colleagues came to shake her hand one by one to tell her that « it is an honor to serve with you, » she recalls. The online response was just heartwarming.

The negative reactions only followed later. First Trump came to power and forbade the recruitment of new transgender people – but he left the existing staff untouched. His hateful tweets and policy provided extra visibility of and appreciation of transmilitors. In 2019, the percentage of Americans who thought that transgender people could well defend their country up to 71. In the meantime that is again dropped to 58 percenta smaller majority. When President Joe Biden subsequently returned to Obama’s policy and the Pentagon sought publicity around Frams promotion to Colonel, the « untrained » hostility increased. It didn’t lie down anymore.

Fram still experiences full support within the armed forces. « Every day I am approached somewhere in the hallway or there is someone at my desk to thank and encourage me. » But that is different in society. Trump made transgender people one of his most important negative election themes. « Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on hateful campaign spots. Precisely because the Group Trans Persons is quite small, we are an easy enemy. It is easy to demonize us and stereotyping towards people who don’t know us. » With totally opposed rhetoric, by the way. Trump shouts that transpersons are unsuitable and incapable to serve their country, but at the same time issues decrees that couples that women have one unfair benefit have in sports. Apparently they are too capable there.

Defense should not only want to recruit and retain people because many of them are fantastic talented individuals, but also because we have the natural attitude to develop us

Fram can smile about it. « It requires a lot of people – despite the prejudices and a society that says: there is something wrong with you, you are a problem – and to say: this is who I am. I am proud of all the colleagues who do that. » The people who dare, according to her, are often better leaders than if they have to keep their true nature hidden. « Defense should not only want to recruit and retain people because many of them are fantastic talented individuals, but also because we have the natural institution to develop. That we do not accept any restrictions, find solutions. Plus, we work extra hard to disprove the prejudices. »

Discriminatory environment

Transgender people are over -represented at the armed forces, according to an inventory from the Ministry of Veteran Affairs. That calculated that the percentage of transgender people among soldiers is probably twice as high as in the rest of society – despite the restrictions that applied a few years after. Fram can come up with various reasons for that. « Some will have thought that the armed forces could ram it out. The masculine side of women was more respected here. And it could be a flight from an oppressive or discriminatory environment. »

One specific idea of ​​Trumps supporters wants to help them out the world. People who want in transition do not come to Defense because health care is free and good there. « It is not that great. If you are looking for an employer with good health insurance, it is better to work at Starbucks or Walmart. No one chooses the armed forces at all, where you put your life at stake for your country, due to a transition operation. » The Ministry of Defense recently announced this per transgender military On average $ 9,000 in care has been issued. A fraction of the military budget and the millions spent on all training and training courses of a colonel like Fram. That money is now thrown away by putting the transgender soldiers on the street.

As long as she is still militarily, Fram – in her own time and without uniform, she explicitly does not speak on behalf of the Ministry or the Government – interviews to tell the world how unjust and stupid the policy of the current government is. How « everything » is at stake for her and other transgender people: their career, their income, their right to exist. And how Defense takes off a mountain of talent in advance. Although she never immediately attacks Trump and Hegseeth. They remain her bosses, whose command they have to follow up.

Fram will go to work until the day she is thrown out. But she also thinks about her future outside the armed forces. « I will end up on my legs, I am white, I have done various academic courses, I have a high rank and a list of performance. » She can’t imagine that she would return at a time – and she knows for sure that it will come within a few years – that transgender people are welcome again. « In that respect, I am more hopeful than desperate. In the generation of my children, almost everyone knows several people who are queer. They will look back on this exile with astonishment. »

That young generation may not want to serve under a republican regime. « Van Gen Z- the 18 to 25 year olds we would like to recruit- 30 percent identify themselves as queer. Will they, and their friends, see the armed forces as an option? » Hegseeth has staged the reverse argument as a reason why the army has recently become less popular. Under Democrats it would have become too ‘woke’ and therefore scare ‘real warriors’.

Fram sees a danger how the armed forces is sucked into the Interior Cultural War. « This goes beyond reinforcing discrimination. It will have a wrinkle effect and further polarize the armed forces. The United States depends on a professional, impartial and voluntary army. If we make dramatic swindings every four or eight years, we lose our strength. »

The American armed forces, which has no conscription, already has many recruitment problems, especially through Overweight and disinterest among young people. Polarization strengthens that problem. As a transgender in the army you have a special position, says Fram. « On the one hand of the political spectrum people say: you are queer, so you shouldn’t be with the army. On the other hand people say: if you are in the army, you can’t be queer. »

At the front door there is a blue sign with the text ‘at home where the Air Force sends us’. Underneath hang seven signs with the names of the military bases where Fram served and took her family. In addition, the pass for a new list is at home where the Space Force sends us’, with only the Pentagon underneath.

Despite her will to compete and the role she has taken as the figurehead of Trans soldiers, Fram confesses that she recently stood at it crying. « Because no new sign is added. That is the reality that thousands of soldiers now have to deal with. The possibility of still doing great things for the United States has decreased from them. That breaks my heart, for all those colleagues and for the country. »

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