Making her mark

The old saw is simple. If you show up, work hard and do your job well, good things will follow.

But perhaps not if you’re transgender. And especially not in the military in 2025.

Space Force Col. Bree Fram pointed out during her visit to San Diego this week that it’s “competence first that earns people’s trust in the military.”

But her skills don’t matter now, even as the highest-ranked openly transgender military officer in the U.S. She is preparing for retirement because of the Trump administration’s ban on service members like her.

While in town to speak at a San Diego LGBT Community Center ceremony for the LGBT Veterans Wall of Honor, she said that as far as competence, “trans folks showed (it), everywhere, every rank, every service, all around the world.” And their service, she said, mattered. So does hers. Her thoughts on her oath, democracy and discrimination are well worth a read.

Like transgender issues, these two topics remain at the forefront of the news – ICE and Proposition 50. We have a story and a column that explore new wrinkles:

• Is ICE tough enough? Perhaps not in the Trump administration’s eyes, according to reports, prompting federal officials to prepare to install Border Patrol leadership instead. Lillian Perlmutter takes a look at the tangle, which raises a question: How many raids that have been blamed on ICE were really Border Patrol operations?

• Hard to escape Prop. 50 in the past week, whether weighing its impact on local races or Gov. Gavin Newsom’s national profile. But columnist Dan Walters, a long-time hand at Sacramento politics, asks this: What if, after all the hubbub, a “legal limbo” forces the state to revert to the pre-Prop. 50 maps?

Thoughts? Opinions? Share them with us at news@timesofsandiego.com.