Link: https://www.advocate.com/politics/national/julia-curlee-transgender-cia-briefer?1

Julia Curlee briefed presidents and became the White House’s senior career intelligence official. Then a far-right campaign targeted her for being transgender.

Julia Curlee spent nearly two decades carrying the country’s secrets.

She worked in war zones, traveled to 35 countries, briefed presidents, and boarded Air Force One with the President’s Daily Brief. She was trusted to decide what some of the world's most powerful people needed to know before beginning their days.

But in a remarkable first-person account published Monday by The Atlantic, Curlee describes how the second Trump administration came to view something else as dangerously sensitive: the fact that one of its most experienced intelligence officials was a transgender woman.

Her identity was never a secret inside the government. Trump officials had known about it during his first term, when Curlee briefed senior White House officials and became Vice President Mike Pence’s daily intelligence briefer. It became intolerable, she writes, only when the public might learn about it.

“The White House had needed me,” Curlee writes. “Trump officials had known I was trans from day one.”

Curlee joined the CIA in 2007 and became the first officer at the agency to transition openly and continue serving. She had dreamed of becoming an intelligence officer since childhood. Her other lifelong conviction — that she should have been born a woman — seemed, for years, incompatible with that calling.

She transitioned in 2013. Her first day at work as Julia passed without incident. Four years later, she wrote about the experience in The Atlantic under the pseudonym Jenny Hall, explaining how living openly had made her a more effective intelligence officer. The CIA later used the essay in college recruiting, according to Curlee.

Then came an assignment to prepare and deliver the President’s Daily Brief during Trump’s first administration. The work required arriving around midnight, studying intelligence through the early morning, and entering the West Wing before dawn.

Curlee eventually became Pence’s briefer. It was an unlikely pairing. Pence had spent years opposing marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights. Curlee was a gay transgender woman, a wife, and a mother.

Yet Pence, she says, treated her as a trusted professional. He took notes, asked questions, and invited Curlee’s family to the White House when her assignment ended. There, he took her mother’s hand and said, “You must be very proud of your daughter.”

For Curlee, the moment proved that public service could rise above politics. She could serve an administration whose policies she opposed, and its leaders could recognize her expertise and humanity.

That belief brought her back to the White House under President Joe Biden, where she served as a National Security Council director. It also persuaded her to remain when Trump returned to office in January 2025.

As Biden’s political appointees departed, Curlee became the senior career intelligence official in the White House. She helped prepare the incoming administration to assume power, even as colleagues warned that she could become a target.

On Trump’s first day back in office, he signed an executive order directing the federal government to recognize only two sexes. Curlee began leaving the White House complex and crossing Pennsylvania Avenue to use restrooms in nearby coffee shops.

She stayed.

Three days into the administration, roughly 160 National Security Council employees detailed from other agencies were abruptly ordered to leave the White House. Curlee was spared. She assembled what remained of her team and continued briefing officials.

The arrangement lasted 69 days.

Curlee was visiting family in Roanoke, Virginia, when she received a Saturday phone call telling her that her White House assignment had ended. She said that officials did not explain. In the same conversation, they asked her to return Monday because they still needed her work.

After hanging up, Curlee saw that far-right provocateur Laura Loomer had posted about a transgender person “Biden holdover” inside the White House, accused the unnamed official of hating Trump, and asked her followers to help identify the person.

Curlee returned to work anyway. She spent three more days completing a budget project and transferring the portfolio she had managed for nearly two years.

“We need you. We need your service. But we don’t want anyone to know you are here,” she writes of the message she received.

Curlee does not claim to have proof that Trump or Loomer personally ordered her removal because she is transgender. She was never given a reason. But her account leaves little ambiguity about the sequence: Her identity had been known and accepted while her work remained useful and private. Once it threatened to become public, her service no longer protected her.

Days later, Trump fired several other National Security Council officials after meeting with Loomer, who had urged him to purge officials she considered insufficiently loyal.

Curlee returned to the CIA. There, she watched the agency dismantle its LGBTQ+ employee organization, remove Pride flags, and impose the administration’s restrictions on transgender workers. Earlier this year, she finally left the career she had once expected to hold for life.

In an accompanying Radio Atlantic interview, Curlee delivered a painful reversal of the message she once offered LGBTQ+ young people.

“Now I could not in good conscience advise any LGBT American to apply to work at CIA,” she said.

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Leopards would never eat MY face, said the woman who briefed face eating leopards

Eh, she had been doing that job for decades, and didn't agree with Trump politically. Someone else voted for the leopards who ate her face.

Hey, what job was that again?

Has the CIA historically been anti-trans? That's the only way this makes halfway sense as a leopard eating face situation.

You may dislike her for working for the CIA, and you may think she deserved it. But I don't see this fitting the theme.

Yes.

You may dislike her for working for the CIA, and you may think she deserved it. But I don’t see this fitting the theme.

What do you earnestly believe the CIA does‽

I can't believe you even had to ask that.

she watched the agency dismantle its LGBTQ+ employee organization, remove Pride flags, and impose the administration’s restrictions on transgender workers. Earlier this year, she finally left the career she had once expected to hold for life.

Anti-Trans because Laura Loomer had Trump's ear for a second. Probably told him there is a secret trans conspiracy deep state.

This is not leopards eat my face material. Her job was to summarize intelligence for any elected official.

Every time I hear about something like this I get the feeling that it’s actually because that person is ethical and wouldn’t sell their secrets to the highest bidder rather than being about the thing they say.

On Trump’s first day back in office, he signed an executive order directing the federal government to recognize only two sexes. Curlee began leaving the White House complex and crossing Pennsylvania Avenue to use restrooms in nearby coffee shops.

She stayed.

This is where my sympathy for her evaporated, and even causes me to question her judgment.

Make no mistake - I don’t agree with the administration’s actions, even a little. However, staying in a situation where you’re clearly, undeniably not wanted is a terrible choice.

I respectfully disagree.

The job changed on her, as jobs occasionally do. It became summarizing intelligence for an elected official who only recognized two sexes. She decided to stay regardless. The message of hateful intolerance was written on the wall as clearly as possible. Her choice to ignore that reality is how she got her face eaten.

She didn’t deserve it merely for existing. From my perspective, she deserved it for her asinine, inexplicable decision to continue serving an administration that clearly didn’t respect people like her. She continued to serve an administration that had become an enemy.

She could have just walked away, but instead walked across the street to piss at Starbucks, then walked right back.

The job changed on her to Trump 1, then again to Biden, then again to Trump 2.

And she stayed because elected leaders need intelligence gathered from their own sources so they can make the best decision for their people.

Leopards Eat My Face is situations when people actually want the Leopard.

Leopards Eat My Face is situations when people actually want the Leopard.

That’s a good point. Wanting to stay and appease the Leopard seems close enough in this case, though.

Cuz leaving the CIA when you're being actively targeted is a smart idea /s

Wanting to stay and appease the Leopard seems close enough in this case, though.

Would you add every other federal employee who lost their job?

Should climate scientists just quit then because Trump doesn't like what they're telling him about clean coal?

If they lost it because of an obvious discriminatory policy against them, but they chose to ignore reality and remain a good little worker bee anyway, then yes.

Maybe. Do they consider the administration’s position a personal attack? Then yes.

Loomer, hm?

Why just quit, they can flee to a country that still cares about climate science and continue working on important research. The US isn't going to produce anything worthwhile in that field for at least two more years, the only studies they'll fund are ones that say coal, oil and natural gas are good for the environment.

they can flee to a country that still cares about climate science and continue working on important research

Research funding doesn't just pop up that quickly.

The US isn’t going to produce anything worthwhile in that field for at least two more years

The currently employed climate scientists would disagree.

the only studies they’ll fund are ones that say coal, oil and natural gas are good for the environment

They're still funding climate studies. Republicans are still trying to gut them.

It seems to me that any employee could fall under this logic given that every CEO has a interest in automating away their entire work force.

That seems like appeasement to the asshole who want's them gone.

I didn’t know that CEOs could draft executive orders

The asshole would be happy whether the employee quits or gets fired. It’s unavoidable. I’m more concerned with the wellbeing of the employee than the asshole, and hope the employee chooses to leave on their own terms.

A CEO can draft discriminatory policies which take immediate effect and it's up to employees to ask a judge to stop them.

This whole story is because she couldn't leave on her own terms. Loomer lied about some trans illuminati and now she's fired. This story shouldn't be on Leopards ate my face.

Yes, leave the country to for a place that will accept them and their talents. Let the cespit rot and guard a socity that accepts you and is worth fighting for. America isn't the only place on earth hiring people like this.

That not appesment, that you chossing to move on and away from a country that clearly doesn't value you considering they let him in their in the first place.

for any elected official

Let’s set some honest good faith arguments:

• Who exactly does she answer to?
• What intelligence did she gather?
• For what purpose is that intelligence gathered?

Does doing illegal espionage for a singular official person count as “summary” for any office?

I hate how the intelligence “community” is already defending her selling secrets to The White House, because foreigners also do not deserve their secrets stay secret. Cry me a river, your job was snitching to leopards where prey is at!

Non sequitur.

Should a spy spy?

Quite the capitalist approach, when a CIA can just assassinate CEOs and classify their actions.

Then why was the CIA targeting “buggers”?

My polygot ass couldn't even dare approach a Karen.
Why do Americentrists even assume I am scathing yapper, when I specifically choose the Canadian instance to 🔁?

Amekunts this illiterate?

Yes a spy should spy

Yes, leave the country to for a place that will accept them and their talents. Let the cespit rot and guard a socity that accepts you and is worth fighting for. America isn’t the only place on earth hiring people like this.

No country or continent would have the resources to just accept all those climate scientists. And just letting people rot is not amongst their nature.

A CEO could also pay for assassinations and classify their actions

You’re acting like that’s so easy.

I sympathize with the notion, but quitting one's living is scary, especially if they have people
To support. Immigrating somewhere else, finding a place that will take you, uprooting your whole life, is hard.

Enjoy the consequences of spying without consent.

But the CIA has clearance, C👔 have to lobby.
Glad you can demonstrate conservative values.

• The executive branch
• Intelligence from every spy & spy satellite presumably.
• To keep the president informed

Does doing illegal espionage for a singular official person count as “summary” for any office?

Yes. A decision has to be made with the best available information.

I do not understand what the consequences are in this context?

The CIA doesn't have clearance to perform illegal actions. Neither does a CEO.

A decision a President, not Congress, not the Supreme Justices, or the public makes.
This is why she is by academic definition, a private spy. Not a public one.

Now that as a spy, she has been publicly burned, I hope she can continue sabotaging her public.

Do you comprehend what consent is?

Ok, last disinfo strike.

I hereby request permission to disengage.

From your linked article:

American citizens working for al Qaeda overseas can legally be targeted and killed by the CIA under President Bush's rules for the war on terrorism, U.S. officials say.

The authority to kill U.S. citizens is granted under a secret finding signed by the president after the Sept. 11 attacks that directs the CIA to covertly attack al Qaeda anywhere in the world.

Seems like the CIA can legally kill you if you work for Al Qaeda

Yes I do.

What are the consequences in this context?