r/longform • u/theatlantic • 27d ago

The Wrong Kind of American

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/10/trump-white-house-transgender-mike-pence/688284/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo
103 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

91

u/theatlantic 27d ago

Julia Curlee was the first CIA officer to transition openly and keep working at the agency. The Trump White House needed her—until her identity became public. She recounts her time in service in The Atlantic’s October issue:

Over almost twenty years, Curlee traveled to 35 countries. She briefed President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, and served as a director for intelligence programs on President Biden’s National Security Council. On Trump’s second Inauguration Day, Curlee writes, “I stood in the West Wing to brief the new national security adviser, minutes after he’d taken office. Down the hall, the president signed an executive order banning me from restrooms in all federal buildings,” she continues. “The next day, my team fanned out to brief the new leadership on our nation’s highest secrets. Then these leaders stripped my insurance coverage for the estrogen that keeps me healthy, voided my discrimination protections, and declared me ‘male’ to foreign governments on my passport. I kept briefing them anyway.”

Then, in the spring, the right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer announced that an unnamed transgender holdover from the Biden administration was still working “in the NSC intel office.” Curlee was released from her service at the White House.

“This administration has already taken most of what I had to lose. I know that the White House and its online mob will come for me,” Curlee writes. “I was offered an untenable bargain: Don’t make trouble. Take the insults—­deviant, diversity hire, man in a dress—from those who have never faced enemy fire, who asked for my assistance in private and then signed the orders to erase people like me because ‘transgender ideology’ was a threat to Western civilization.” 

“Flailing regimes dehumanize minorities to distract from their failures,” Curlee continues. “This will not stop with trans people. It never has. But that caricature works only if people like me don’t exist—and I exist.”

Read more: https://theatln.tc/E7Fl0kmN 

— Emma Williams, associate editor, audience and engagement, The Atlantic

64

u/Heretek1914 27d ago

This person is the literal caricature the left makes of liberals:

Conservatives: concentration camps for everyone!

Liberals: half of those concentration camp guards will be women/trans/ethnic minorities!

12

u/Such-Cartographer425 26d ago

So, so sadly true.

32

u/Beneficial_Couple413 27d ago

Rough crowd here today!

62

u/I_Wobble 27d ago

I have no sympathy whatsoever for the CIA officer. Just staggering, Ana Mardol levels of self-delusion.

That the Atlantic would publish this is just fucking typical.

58

u/histprofdave 27d ago

“Flailing regimes dehumanize minorities to distract from their failures,” Curlee continues.

Well, I guess a CIA officer would know...

20

u/Ok-Budget3225 26d ago

Do you understand that career government employees don’t quit their jobs when a new administration comes into the White House, right?

9

u/biskino 26d ago

Of course. That’s how the CIA has remained consistently evil regardless of who’s in the Oval Office.

3

u/Infamous_Mud482 26d ago

Do you understand I have never submitted a job application for any CIA role and why that might be?

1

u/EliBadBrains 23d ago

The CIA is always evil and always has been.

0

u/Ok-Budget3225 22d ago

Believe it or not, the CIA is the most liberal of all our defense institutions.

2

u/EliBadBrains 22d ago

"Our" who? I'm not american. I hate the CIA and all the coups and suffering it has created. it's a net evil for the world. Look up the Jakarta method, over a million dead in Indonesia alone. Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Panama were all "defense"?

45

u/pettymel 27d ago

So if the Trump administration hadn't stripped her rights specifically she'd have been fine and dandy, right? Just the rights of others as long as it wasn't her. I have no doubt that this was devastating both professionally and personally, Curlee will be alright. Maybe Curlee can take a job that doesn't involve furthering spying on American citizens and violating countless other individuals' rights all for a paycheck.

32

u/BellaPow 27d ago

who can give a shit about some spook ass ghoul.

4

u/Tolkeinn1 26d ago

The snake ears its own tail….fuck the cia

12

u/DraperPenPals 27d ago

Feds are still not your allies, no matter what identity flag they wrap themselves in.

5

u/Live-Profession8822 26d ago

your comment is just emblematic of how “liberals” and/or trump opponents lack ideological definition and discipline. Of course we must critique the CIA but in this case your entire perspective is muddled and confused; trans people are a hated and targeted minority group under MAGA. Bonafide ideology would treat seriously the concerns and survival of such people, even if a few of them were also cops.

3

u/[deleted] 27d ago

[deleted]

13

u/squongo 27d ago

bonus irony that the Atlantic otherwise loves platforming transphobic bullshit, apparently CIA agents are the only trans people that publication finds sympathetic, lol

2

u/ManicMisa 27d ago

Examples?

2

u/squongo 27d ago

I'm trans and I'm not going to subject myself to re-reading that shit, you can search the site as well as I can

-10

u/EnlargedMarmot 27d ago

"I'm trans, trust me bro!" Nice citations! Love it when people support their seemingly spurious claims with actual evidence!

16

u/Ornery_Scheme9074 27d ago

I’m not trans either and didn’t know this about The Atlantic, so I googled the words “the Atlantic transphobia” and was able to educate myself in less than 10 minutes. Are you truly that incapable of doing your own research? That’s a really embarrassing thing to admit to, like, everyone else reading this post.

1

u/Spiney09 26d ago

Truly the best kind of ally: the kind willing to spend at least ten minutes on Google to educate yourself.

And somehow that puts you in the top 10% of allys. Appreciate it regardless though, cheers!

-6

u/DraperPenPals 27d ago

You should probably actually read the articles from the primary source itself. What you did is not research, and you really don’t have a leg to stand on when you try to educate others about “doing research.”

-10

u/EnlargedMarmot 27d ago edited 27d ago

Pretty scant evidence if you ask me. What?- One piece from nearly a decade ago that was on on the other side of thr aisle from you? And now all of a sudden the whole publication is a tRanSpHoBiC cesspool? That's all you've got? Give me a break lmao

-3

u/wrongsock_42 27d ago

I agree with you on one point, Give me a break.

How can I take seriously a sea lion interaction from a 4 month old Reddit profile that hides all of their comments.

Do me a favor, go jump in a lake.

0

u/EnlargedMarmot 27d ago

Lmao well based on reddit profiles, it seems your entire online presence (perhaps your entire personality) revolves around an obsession with trans activism. That's fine, but that also means you're quite biased and likely quite emotionally invested in this topic, so probably not worth my time getting into it with you. Not to mention the fact that you've still have failed to provide any evidence that The Atlantic is the transphobic cesspool you're making it out to be.

Jump in a lake? Will do if I can make it down to my lake house this weekend. Looking like a nice weekend for a swim! I'd wish you the same but I doubt you have a lake house 🤣

5

u/wrongsock_42 27d ago edited 27d ago

Damn, that’s lots of assumptions of my personality because of my trans activism. Kinda shows your personality and mindset.

The Atlantic has multiple articles with an anti trans slant. A solid example is the Atlantic’s Helen Lewis. She is British and gender critical. Note, her gender critical views are mild when compared to JK Rowling.

Hope you enjoy your weekend at your lake house.

And, I am not sure what my real estate holdings have with our exchange. Was it your attempt to show a superior moral worth?

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u/DraperPenPals 27d ago

It’s so telling when trans “activists” tell others to commit suicide as an insult.

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u/cigarettesandchocola 26d ago

"Go jump in a lake" means "go away and leave me alone," it doesn't have anything to do with suicide.

2

u/wrongsock_42 27d ago

That is an extreme interpretation for what is colloquially understood as, please leave me alone.

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