Senior White House intelligence official says she was fired from the CIA for being a trans woman after President Donald Trump returned to office
Julia Curlee, a former senior White House intelligence official, said she was fired from the CIA because she is a transgender woman after President Donald Trump returned to office, ending a nearly two-decade career that included briefing some of the nation’s most powerful leaders.
Julia Curlee’s career at the White House
Curlee, who became the senior career intelligence official in the White House during the most recent presidential transition, detailed her experience in a first-person account published by The Atlantic. Curlee said Trump officials had long known she was transgender, including during his first administration.
“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 later became the first agency officer to openly transition while continuing to serve. She transitioned in 2013 and subsequently wrote about the experience under the pseudonym Jenny Hall. According to Curlee, the CIA later used the essay for college recruiting.
Her intelligence career eventually took her inside the White House during Trump’s first term, where she worked on the President’s Daily Brief and became Vice President Mike Pence’s daily intelligence briefer.
Respectful professional relationship with Mike Pence
Curlee said that despite Pence’s history of opposing same-gender marriage and LGBTQ+ rights, their professional relationship was respectful. When her assignment ended, Pence invited Curlee’s family to the White House and told her mother, “You must be very proud of your daughter.”
The experience convinced Curlee she could continue serving administrations regardless of political differences. She later returned to the White House under President Joe Biden as a National Security Council director.
Shift in federal policy
When Trump returned to office in January 2025, Curlee stayed. As Biden’s political appointees left, she became the White House’s senior career intelligence official and helped prepare the incoming administration, despite warnings from colleagues that she could become a target.
Trump’s return, however, brought an immediate change in federal policy toward transgender Americans.
On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to recognize only two genders. Curlee said the change affected even basic aspects of her workday. She began leaving the White House complex and crossing Pennsylvania Avenue to use restrooms at nearby coffee shops.
Curlee’s account portrays a striking reversal for an intelligence veteran who had worked in war zones, traveled to 35 countries, briefed presidents and carried the President’s Daily Brief aboard Air Force One. She argues that an identity previously known and accepted inside government ultimately became grounds for her removal after Trump returned to power.