Space Force Col. Bree Fram gives an inspiring speech at The San Diego LGBT Community Center’s Veterans Wall of Honor induction ceremony. (Photo courtesy of Paul Margolis)
HILLCREST — Space Force Col. Bree Fram is on administrative leave, pending separation from the military due to President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops.
In this limbo, the highest-ranked openly transgender military officer in the U.S is technically active duty while awaiting retirement.
Like many out and outed LGBTQ+ service members in the past, her departure from the military is not voluntary, adding resounding grief to the process, she said this week, while in San Diego to give the keynote address at The Center’s annual LGBT Veterans Wall of Honor induction ceremony.
“I’m still grieving over the loss of what I believed my future was,” said Fram, first a part of the Air Force, then Space Force. “I invested almost 23 years in the service. And I absolutely believed in what the military stood for, believed in my oath to the Constitution and I worked on amazing things with incredible people. I loved what I did.”
Fram spoke (in her personal capacity, not as a representative of the Department of Defense, or War, per Trump’s September executive order) to the many local LGBTQ+ veterans, service members and supporters in attendance.
It was a bright spot in a year of struggle, as Fram was surrounded by community and joy. Still, the colonel was not allowed to appear at The Center in uniform. On her jacket lapel, she pinned a trans pride flag and American flag pin, which she said represents a lot of what she believes in.
From left, Veronica Zerrer (Veterans Wall of Honor Advisory Council co-chair), Space Force Col. Bree Fram, Clay Kilpatrick (Veterans Wall of Honor Advisory Council co-chair) and Gloria Cruz Cardenas (Chief Impact Officer of The Center) at the induction ceremony. (Photo courtesy of Paul Margolis)
The San Diego LGBT Community Center – The Center’s full name – founded the Veterans Wall of Honor in the wake of the 2011 repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that was first implemented by former President Bill Clinton. That policy of hiding one’s identity was seen in the ‘90s as a step forward – LGBT service members were no longer automatically investigated and discharged.
In 2016, former President Barack Obama went on to repeal a ban on transgender troops. Fram came out that day in a letter to her colleagues. She continued working as an astronautical engineer when Trump re-implemented the ban for the first time in 2017. It’s only now, when the ban also includes a purge of transgender troops, that she is departing.
“Seeing that institutional step backwards … is incredibly disheartening,” Fram said. “This is a reversal that really is almost unprecedented in terms of re-institutionalizing discrimination.”
The Center’s wall honors veterans who advanced equality and served with distinction, no matter the discriminatory policies of the moment. This year’s inductees, honored Thursday, were Navy veterans Ashley Tatum, Jennifer P. K. Jow, Joe Zilvinski, Nat Kapp and Todd Andrew Nelms; Army veterans Jeff Hall, Miguel Hernandez, Ray Moore and Tom Rummel, and Air Force veteran Michael Rolfe Zarbo.
Space Force Col. Bree Fram and The Center CEO Cara Dessert. (Photo courtesy of the San Diego LGBT Community Center)
Despite past bans, LGBTQ+ people have always served. The LGBTQ+ service member population was even prevalent enough in military-centric San Diego to support a couple gay Navy bars, such as the Gold Rail which advertised itself in 1955 as “Where Mate Meets Mate.”
“We have been part of the military since the Revolution,” Fram said. “It’s really that competence first that earns people’s trust in the military. And the trans folks showed that, everywhere, every rank, every service, all around the world. And that mattered.”
In the sparse data available, transgender people were two to five times more likely than the general population to serve even prior to the repeal of the transgender military ban in 2016, making it the largest employer of transgender Americans.
For some, the military is an escape from an unaccepting home environment. But others, like Fram, are idealists. In the wake of 9/11, she wanted to defend the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution.
In both cases, it opened up economic opportunities to a population with roughly double the unemployment rate of the cisgender population in 2022.
“Anytime you take away economic opportunity and a pathway for people, that’s problematic for any community,” said Fram, who now resides in northern Virginia.
Those former transgender service members must compete for jobs with thousands of fired federal workers.
Fram spent the year writing her memoir. She isn’t yet sure if it will be a military memoir or a transition memoir. Those two identities are entangled for her, so it could be a combination of both.
And like she told San Diego veterans at the ceremony, service does not stop the moment she had to take off her uniform. She has continued to fight for founding freedoms like free speech, bodily autonomy and the pursuit of happiness.
“That is our power as Americans,” Fram said. “That oath has no expiration date and we get to continue defending democracy in different ways.”
Space Force Col. Bree Fram champions free speech at The Center in Hillcrest on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo courtesy of the San Diego LGBT Community Center)
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