A San Diego Navy doctor has been removed from her leadership role and is now under investigation after her social media profile caught the attention of a right-wing activist and the U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Janelle Marra, who has served on active duty in the Navy for 17 years, was the medical services director of Expeditionary Medical Facility 150 Bravo, a Navy unit in San Diego trained to provide medical care to support military operations.<\/p>\n
Her LinkedIn profile was flagged in a post by a right-wing account<\/a> on X \u2014 Libs of TikTok \u2014 on Sept. 4, calling out Marra for including her pronouns on the page and listing a job title of \u201cDeputy Medical Director for Transgender Healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n The post tagged Hegseth and asked him to \u201clook into\u201d it. By that evening, Hegseth re-shared the post<\/a> with the message: \u201cPronouns UPDATED: She\/Her\/Fired.\u201d<\/p>\n While Marra has not officially been fired and is still working as a physician at Navy Medical Center San Diego clinics, she has been \u201cadministratively removed from her leadership position for a loss of confidence in her ability to lead\u201d and is \u201cunder investigation for violating social media policy,\u201d according to a U.S. Navy official.<\/p>\n The Department of Defense, also known as the Department of War, said it stands by Hegseth\u2019s post on X that commented on Marra\u2019s pronouns and indicated that she would be terminated.<\/p>\n \u201cThe War Department is not in the business of radical gender theory. We are in the business of warfighting,\u201d Pentagon Press Secretary\u00a0Kingsley Wilson said in a statement. \u201cSecretary Hegseth\u2019s post on X reaffirms this.\u201d<\/p>\n For Marra\u2019s family, the experience has been shocking.<\/p>\n \u201cI never thought that somebody so high in government would be willing to target individual people,\u201d said Marra\u2019s wife, Cassandra. \u201cThey\u2019re willing to put somebody in the military on that front page and be like, \u2018Get her.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Marra could not be reached for comment while she\u2019s under investigation.<\/p>\n Active duty service members\u2019 social media accounts have been under closer scrutiny this month. Multiple members are reportedly under investigation or have been suspended<\/a> for posts on social media critical of conservative activist Charlie Kirk following his recent assassination. Many of the posts were publicly flagged by accounts such as Libs of TikTok.<\/p>\n Nik Ursher, a communications associate professor at the University of San Diego who focuses on technology, politics and the news media, says that Libs of TikTok is akin to an \u201corganized watchdog group,\u201d but notes that this situation isn\u2019t new. Opposition research is a tactic that\u2019s been used by political activists for decades.<\/p>\n \u201cYou comb through somebody\u2019s past and you find things that could discredit them, and you use that in order to help you achieve your political goals,\u201d Ursher said. \u201cAnd the difference now is that that has been democratized and anybody can be part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n A Navy official confirmed that it\u2019s \u201cactively reviewing reports\u201d of sailors whose social media activity is \u201cmisaligned with the Department\u2019s current social media guidance,\u201d but did not elaborate further on what exactly the current guidance entails.<\/p>\n However, there is a social media handbook<\/a> for the Navy that outlines expectations for sailors\u2019 online conduct. The handbook states that active-duty sailors can express personal views about public issues or political candidates using social media, though they can\u2019t engage in partisan political activity, such as posting a link to a political party or campaign.<\/p>\n Marra has spent much of her medical career in San Diego. She completed her internship and residency in family medicine at the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton in 2011, according to<\/a> the American Medical Women\u2019s Association. She completed a fellowship in primary care sports medicine at the naval hospital a few years later.<\/p>\n She also has experience presenting on health care for the LGBTQ+ community and women, which she describes on her LinkedIn as a \u201cfocus\u201d of her work.<\/p>\n \u201cShe treated me like a real person and not a number,\u201d said Parker Moore, a nuclear reactor electronics technician in the Navy and one of Marra\u2019s current patients.<\/p>\n Moore has been seeing Marra as their primary care doctor for the last few months. After 13 years of service, Moore is being separated from the Navy under the Trump administration\u2019s ban on transgender service members, but says they\u2019re not seeing Marra for transgender health care.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of my medical things are transgender related, which a lot of providers relate everything to,\u201d Moore said, adding that Marra\u2019s understanding of trans health means she doesn\u2019t jump to it as a conclusion for all ailments.<\/p>\n Marra\u2019s LinkedIn profile has been updated over the last few weeks. While it still lists her pronouns, the profile photo was removed, it no longer includes any leadership positions within the Navy and now issues a disclaimer: \u201cThis profile does not represent the opinions of the DoD, DHA, Navy or other government entities.\u201d<\/p>\n Marra had the role of deputy medical director for transgender health care on her LinkedIn. But it\u2019s a role that doesn\u2019t appear to exist, at least not anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Department does not have a transgender health center,\u201d a Defense Health Agency spokesperson said. \u201cIt was considered last year but the idea was abandoned.\u201d<\/p>\n Since taking office, the Trump administration has taken significant steps to\u00a0roll back key protections for the LGBTQ+ community \u2014 specifically, transgender people. Trump\u2019s policies have especially impacted service members and veterans, including an executive order that bans transgender troops<\/a> and another that bars trans veterans from receiving gender-affirming care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n