U.S. Space Force Colonel Bree Fram, who was forced into retirement simply for being transgender, has announced she is running for Congress in Northern Virginia. She also has two kids, and has spoken of how she is motivated by the need to make a better world for all children.
“Too many Americans are afraid of what the federal government will do to them, instead of being confident in what it can do for them,” Fram said yesterday in an Instagram reel announcing her campaign. “So that’s why I’m running for Congress: to make opportunity affordable, to protect our basic rights, and ensure we have a government that works for you.”
Fram, a decorated officer with more than 20 years of service, was the highest-ranking out transgender officer in the Department of Defense. She was an astronautical engineer who began her service in the Air Force, and most recently served as director of requirements and integration for the Space Force. She has served in a Research and Development command position and an oversight role for all Air Force security cooperation activity with Iraq, per her website, and earlier served in the Air Force Directorate of Strategic Plans, as a Legislative Fellow for Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo at the U.S. Capitol, as a program manager for satellite and technology programs, and was deployed to Qatar and Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Her years of expertise and leadership are now lost to the military.
Fram and her wife, who have been married for 20 years and together for 25, are raising their two children in Reston, Virginia. In an interview with the Advocate, she noted that both children are on the autism spectrum and one of them is trans, and asserted, “My kids animate my fight. This is about what kind of world they’re going to get to live in—where they get to choose who they are, who they love, and do that safely.”
Her campaign in Virginia’s 11th district isn’t just about her own family, though, but more broadly “about children who feel unsafe at school, families strained by instability, and communities unsettled by a federal government she believes has become unpredictable and punitive,” as the Advocate reports.
Her own website elaborates:
She is fighting to defend democracy and fundamental freedoms, to build an economy that offers real affordability and opportunity, and to restore an effective, accountable government worthy of public trust. Bree believes America should be a beacon to refugees—not a source of them—and that no child should ever have to wonder whether their country has room for them.
If elected, Fram would be the second transgender member of Congress, after Sarah McBride (D-DE). She would also be the second transgender person—and transgender parent—to serve in a major elected office in Virginia, following Danica Roem (D VA-30), who serves in the state senate.