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- [00:03]
A
Hi, Bill Kristol here. Welcome to Bulwark on Sunday. Before I introduce our our guest Brief Ram, I'm very much looking forward to this conversation. I should say that I've been told instructed by the authorities at the at the Bulwark to say that I'm off next week. I'll be we'll be at the beach for a week. So I don't they either won't be able to work on Sunday it will be host or there'll be an upgrade to a different host. But, but meanwhile this I'll be around all this week. I'll join Tim tomorrow on his podcast, Tim Miller as usual. And then on Wednesday I want to promote, if I could, the Bulwark Book Club with Mona Charon. I think this is the third monthly episode. Live Wednesday at 1:30pm we'll discuss Mark Twain's Pudd' Nhead Wilson, a book I hadn't read before, which is very, very interesting, I'm going to say. And that'll be live at 1:30 and that will be on the website on the Mona Charon show if you want to watch or listen to it later. So book club Wednesday and then off to the off to the beach. But very pleased to be joined by pre FRAM Today, retired U.S. space Force colonel, Air Force before that, before there was a space force, I guess, served for over two decades in the US military, forced to retire in 2026 because of Trump's executive order barring transgender people, regardless of how honorable or distinguished their service was from serving in the military. And so we discussed this almost I looked it up. It seems like more recently we just almost a year ago you were my guest here. We had a very interesting discussion, I thought. And I want to thank you for joining me again and picking up the story and discussing both the fate of transgender service members, an unhappy story, but an important one. And then also sort of what's going on in the military more broadly in your judgment. So, Bri, thanks for joining me again.
- [01:49]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me back. It's a pleasure to join you.
- [01:52]
A
So a year ago, I think you were sort of in limbo. Exactly. But kind of on your way out, you know, on some pause on your, on your way out of the military. Just describe what, what the situation was then and what's happened, what's happened since, if you would.
- [02:06]
B
Yeah. At the time I was on administrative leave, which I spent nearly seven months on, where I was paid to wait around until my retirement was official, with no official duties other than sending an email Once a week said, I'm still alive. Yet it came with all sorts of indignities. If I had put my uniform on, I could have been brought up on charges. And when I had my actual retirement ceremony with transgender service members from every branch there as well, we had to set our dress uniforms and our boots up on a table on mannequins while we retired in civilian attire. And those were the uniforms we bled in, we sweat in, we. We fought for. But it was awful. And even then, a week before I formally retired, I was called into the Pentagon, had a three star officer tell me that I was still subject to the uniform Code of Military justice, even after I retired. And this was right when Hegseth and others went after Senator Kelly. And I just wondered, though I held my tongue, I'm like, are you threatening to Mark Kelly me to put that into a verb? Because it was clear that what was being asked for was my silence, but that this administration was absolutely not going to get. And two weeks after I was retired, I launched a bid for Congress here in Northern Virginia, which unfortunately ended when our maps were ruled unconstitutional by the Virginia Supreme Court.
- [03:42]
A
So you retired as a colonel and have. After more than two decades of honorable service and including, I think, in Iraq, and very early. I guess that would have been very early in your career, in 2003 or something. And then obviously many other important positions since I am sort of struck. Why wouldn't why can't you. And you served in the. In your uniform for the last. I don't know how many years. Many years. It's not like this was. And then they wouldn't let you retire. Why, why, why, why, why the ban on your uniform?
- [04:11]
B
So part of the point of forcing us out was not acknowledging the existence of transgender people. So before I was pushed out against my will, the Department of Defense, for me and for all the other service members changed our records back to what they were when we joined the service. And so if I were to have worn my uniform without cutting my hair, without taking out my earrings, I could have been accused of being out of uniform, basically charged for failing to follow an order, failing to follow the standards that were assigned to me. And this was all done against our will, while to get it changed in the first place, a massive process, all sorts of paperwork proved this, proved that. And in this case, it was a unilateral. Not anymore. So it was just one of the many indignities heaped on us when we
- [05:02]
A
talked a year ago. You talked about both the indignities and the I don't want to get back to this side of it, the degree to which senior officers seem to have gone along with this order. And. But how many of your peers, and I guess, superiors as well, including general officers, but also many inferiors, if I could use that term, who weren't at the rank of colonel, certainly spoke to you and discussed their reaction to this? I'm just curious, how did that go over those last few months and then. And since your retirement?
- [05:32]
B
Yeah, my last couple of days in uniform, when I was still walking around the halls of the Pentagon, it was amazing that I would have people coming up to me every day who I didn't know, saying, I see you, I support you, or even I love you and keep up the fight. It was fist bumps, high fives, hugs at the end. The people in the unit that I last served with were not allowed to attend my retirement, even despite the fact that I had people that I had served with across my career who flew in to support me. The presiding officer at my retirement was General Stan McChrystal, who came in and said the obvious. I shouldn't even be here. But there were incredible people who threw their support behind us, who recognized what we had done and the value of our service. And in my retirement speech, I mentioned the fact that we were not being tossed away because we had failed in any way. It was because what we had done could not be hidden away if we remained in uniform, that we had done our job so well, that we had one. The respect of our friends, our colleagues, and the people that we worked for or led, that having us there continued to put to the torch the lie that they were saying about our character and our capability.
- [06:57]
A
And the lie, just to remind people, was that anyone who was a transgender service member was, what, Incapable of serving honorably. I can't remember what the.
- [07:06]
B
Yeah, the executive order basically said that we were dishonorable, undisciplined liars who lack the humility required for military service. So that attack on our character on top of the attack, that they made the claim that we were undeployable because of medication that we were taking long term. And I know we're going to get into this, but it's pretty crazy that now we have Secretary Hegseth in his quest for a high T. Department of War, saying that long term hormone replacement therapy is a lethality enhancer for some, but is a clear readiness crisis for others. The hypocrisy behind all of this is overwhelming.
- [07:50]
A
It is. I agree. No, that's very. That's a very compelling point. Well, it's not about any medical. It's not real. I mean, there might conceivably be other medical questions or issues, but this certainly was not about any of that. And it's very clear in cases of people who've been serving for a long time, as you had, and totally, to speak honorably, but also unproblematically, it wasn't as if you, they were like, right, you were having, you know, you were serving like everyone else, so to speak, and no one was raising issues. People were having trouble with you. I mean, that's what's so astounding, I
- [08:27]
B
think, about this purge, right when the department had to go to court to defend against this policy, one of the judges asked them, who are these people? If there's such a problem, who are they? And the response from the Department of Justice defending it was, we don't know. We're going to have to search through their medical records to find them. And that's actually what's happening right now with an AI powered search of medical records, trying to identify and kick out the last remaining openly transgender folks before the Supreme Court can potentially rule on the action that's going on right now to make this a class action lawsuit and to still put an injunction against this policy to throw people out.
- [09:13]
A
So they're hurrying to do it before they might lose.
- [09:16]
B
Exactly it. They are racing as quickly as possible to get through this in made up processes that were designed just to expel trans folks and searching far and wide for anything they can get to figure out who they are, because there actually is no indication that they're a problem.
- [09:35]
A
And I was struck by this New York Times article a few days ago, I guess, kind of long, well reported piece about these, about the way it's happening. And I was really kind of horrified, honestly, by it. You know, these special tribunals and court cases and I mean, the amount of effort and time and also, you know, injustice that's going on in the uniformed military, it got me rattled. I mean, not just on behalf of those to whom the injustice is happening, but sort of what does it say about what's happening more broadly? But we say a word about just that process, how does it, I mean, you were, I think, the highest ranking transgender person. But this is happening throughout the services, down through, through the officer ranks and the enlisted ranks, I suppose.
- [10:19]
B
Yeah. It is a process that is really just a kangaroo court where people are guilty before any evidence is shown. If there is no other outcome because the orders have been passed down that if anyone ever had a diagnosis or symptoms of gender dysphoria, which is something the government required us to get in order to transition within the military, that they fall under this executive order and need to be kicked out despite whatever evidence is offered. And just this morning, in fact, I got a message from a major saying, I just got identified. My board is coming up. Will you write me a letter of. Of support? And they're trying to get hundreds of these letters, but unfortunately, in every case, just about the evidence doesn't matter. The New York Times reported that just one of the cases that they examined, the board recommended to retain the officer. And that was an act of courage because the ultimate decision is actually up to the secretary of the service. So the board, regardless of what they come up with, can be overruled. And the directive is clear, clear from the top, from the political appointees that these people must go, that somehow we are such a threat to the military that we have to be tossed out. And that includes while there have been headlines in the past couple weeks of every service talking about what their retention bonus is for pilots. In the army, it was 250,000. In the Air Force, it was up to 600,000 because they need to keep pilots. Yet we are taking those same highly trained, qualified pilots who just happen to be trans and saying, you are the problem. Get out.
- [12:12]
A
It is astonishing. And just to be. You made this point, but just to repeat it, I guess, yeah. One's record actually, in the military means nothing in these. In these kangaroo courts. Not like you can show up and say, I got. Here's my superior officer from this tour who speaks very highly of me. Or here I have no disciplinary problems, or I. What I. I was awarded these medals. It's all irrelevant. It's just if you've ever. If you've ever, I guess, sought this. This judgment, whatever the right term for that is, gender dysphoria, that. That you. Which you had to do in order to transition. That. That's just. That's it. You're out.
- [12:51]
B
Yeah, it is as simple as that. If that ever appears, you're done. And again, that. That hypocrisy is. Is overwhelming.
- [13:00]
A
And they're searching for it to get everyone out as if it were. I mean, it really is kind of. It's not as if, okay, someone, you know, speaks up, so to speak, on his or her own, one might say, you know, and says, okay, that's one. It still will be pretty hard, totally hard to defend. It's justified, seems to me. But yeah. This kind of search through everyone's records is really. Is.
- [13:21]
B
Yeah.
- [13:22]
A
Kind of astonishing. Are you. I mean, am I wrong to be rattled by. It's one. I guess I'd put it this way. It's bad enough, obviously, when Hexif personally intervenes in promotion boards and personally fires general officers who serve with great distinction and politicizes the military in that way, and it tries to intimidate people, but that we're beyond this is different because they want to go through the sort of sham version of military justice. Right. I mean, they have these. These boards of other military officers. It's not personally, as you say, ultimately the secretary of the civilian secretary of the service presumably has as the authority, but they sort of want to cloak this in, I guess, the way I'm put. I would put it in normal kind of military discipline.
- [14:03]
B
Yeah. And one of the most important things about it, even though a lot of these processes have been created just for transgender service members, what the department is doing is establishing a mechanism. And once you've established the mechanism to throw out one group of people or to discredit their service, it can be used for others. So you alluding to what has been done to women, particular senior officers, people of color, you know, there is nothing that protects their service, too. So if next the department wants to go after lesbians, gays, and bisexuals or women as. Just as it's doing to do a sham study about women in combat, despite their proven performance, they can use these same mechanisms and the same cost. And that's one of the terrible things. We don't even talk about the cost and the time that is being taken to throw people out, that instead of being invested in building our readiness and our future force.
- [15:03]
A
Yeah, no, it really is. Just reading the Times article brought it back to me. Brought our conversation back to me. But just generally how. Again, sort of how gratuitous and cruel, but also, I don't know, systematic. It is in a way, which makes it creepier, if I can put it that way, and more ominous because they are getting a lot of military people to collude in this. Do you have a sense of how are people trying to not collude in it, to not cooperate, to stop it? Is that just not the culture of the military? What's your sense of that?