When U.S. Navy Cmdr. Janelle Marra was removed from her Navy leadership roles and put under investigation for her LinkedIn page, her family did not know she was already the target of an online campaign to get her fired.
When Janelle Marra called her wife, community college biology professor Cassandra Marra, with the news, they were confused. Was everyone’s LinkedIn pages being surveilled or just hers?
“There’s no rhyme or reason for any of this, other than just straight up hate,” Cassandra Marra said. Janelle Marra could not speak to the press while under investigation.
The anatomy of an online harassment campaign
Janelle Marra, a doctor, has worked at Camp Pendleton clinics and the Naval Medical Center San Diego in Balboa Park on and off since 2008. She became medical services director of Expeditionary Medical Facility 150 Bravo, a Navy unit in San Diego trained to provide medical care to support military operations, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Janelle Marra also came to specialize in women’s and LGBTQ+ healthcare, and was nominated by Navy Surgeon General D.K. Via to serve as deputy medical director of the short-lived Defense Health Agency (DHA) Transgender Health Center (TGHC). Via praised her as a great asset to both DHA and Navy medicine in a nomination letter shared with Times of San Diego.
As she began attending meetings and taking virtual patients, Janelle Marra’s LinkedIn page reflected her role.
The Trump administration enacted a transgender military ban to start the year, but never formally dissolved the center.
“She did the job for a year and a half,” Cassandra Marra said. “She did that job. They never got around to giving her a formal recognition of the job, because it fairly quickly became the turnaround between presidents and they also never told her to not do the job. So she was in this position where she was like, ‘Okay, I’m just going to keep doing this job that they told me that I needed to do.’”
That came to the attention of podcaster Chase Spears, who posted a screenshot of Janelle Marra’s LinkedIn page to X on Sept. 4 with the caption, “DEI isn’t fully dead yet.” He highlighted her focus on LGBTQ+ and transgender healthcare, and the fact she filled out the pronouns field on the social media site. In her profile picture, she is in uniform, and her cover photo is of a Pride flag.
Popular right-wing account Libs of Tik Tok picked up the post, tagging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The Libs of Tik Tok account regularly posts anti-LGBTQ+ messages, and frequently share the social media handles, name and identifying information of LGBTQ+ people who then face threats and harassment from the account’s followers.
Within the day, Hegseth reposted the Libs of Tik Tok post, with the quip, “Pronouns UPDATED: She/Her/Fired.”
Online threats spill over into real world
Soon, death threats started rolling in. Among them, the 17-year active duty Navy doctor was told she should be executed by firing squad. The threats were credible enough the military insisted the family report them to the county sheriff to get extra patrols on their street.
Family photos surfaced with their two children. The gay parents were accused of being groomers and pedophiles.
“I’m sure that there are people trying to ensure that we don’t have our kids anymore,” Cassandra Marra said. “That’s one of my greatest fears; my children are my everything.”
The couple has experienced anxiety and depression in the two weeks since the post and leadership change. They have trouble sleeping amid the death threats. Their 7-year-old son is upset about the situation despite not being able to fully comprehend it.
Janelle Marra has not been fired yet. She has been removed from all her leadership roles and is still seeing patients while under investigation for violating social media rules.
Cassandra Marra said she long ago learned to ignore homophobia, but the family would be in financial trouble if her wife is fired. They would lose health insurance for their children, who are diagnosed with autism, and possibly the pension her wife has earned during her 17-year career.
“The real world consequences are definitely much more draining on you than the people accusing you of something,” Cassandra Marra said,
Two weeks later, the Libs of Tik Tok post has nearly 11 million views, thousands of likes and reposts, and hundreds of comments.
“She’s not the first person that this was done to,” Cassandra Marra said “She’s just the first person that has had it so public and so loud. There have been other people removed from their positions.”
She fears the implications if the public tolerates a Naval officer being fired over a social media campaign.
“I love my country and I want better for it,” Cassandra Marra said. “And if nobody speaks out, if nobody says this is wrong, then we’re never going to go in the direction that we need to go.”
