She was forced to retire for being trans. Now, Virginia’s redistricting fight ended her congressional dreams

Virginia Democrats’ chaotic redistricting battle has claimed one of the party’s most closely watched congressional campaigns. Retired Space Force Colonel Bree Fram, the highest-ranking out transgender officer in the U.S. military, announced Wednesday that she is ending her bid for Congress after the state’s Supreme Court threw out newly drawn congressional maps weeks before early voting.

Fram, who was forced into retirement under President Donald Trump’s transgender military ban, said the abrupt reversal left her campaign without enough time to reorganize in Virginia’s reshuffled political landscape.

The ruling that upended the race stunned Democrats across the commonwealth. Virginia voters had approved a constitutional amendment that would have temporarily redrawn congressional districts in ways Democrats believed could help them regain ground in the U.S. House. The push came as Republicans across the country pursued aggressive mid-decade redistricting efforts encouraged by Trump. But in a 4-3 decision last week, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled that lawmakers violated procedural requirements when placing the amendment on the ballot, thereby restoring the previous district lines.

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For Fram, whose campaign, launched on January 20, days after retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal presided over her retirement ceremony, had been built around the new 11th District, the court decision proved politically fatal.

“I am deeply disappointed by the Court’s decision to overturn the map approved by Virginia voters and the consequences it could have on the country,” Fram said in a statement shared with The Advocate. “With only five weeks before early primary voting, the ruling left this campaign without sufficient time and resources to meaningfully pivot to the previous district and have the kind of substantive debate voters deserve.”

The seat is currently held by Congressman James Walkinshaw, a Democrat who won a 2025 special election following the death of longtime Rep. Gerry Connolly.

Fram said Wednesday that she had spoken with Walkinshaw and would support his reelection effort.

“I spoke with Congressman Walkinshaw and wish him nothing but success in representing the people of the 11th and fighting for their interests in Congress,” Fram said.

In an interview with The Advocate on Wednesday morning, Fram described the court ruling as both politically devastating and personally painful. “I am so incredibly frustrated and disappointed,” Fram said. “They had all of those facts prior to the redistricting referendum and all the effort, the time, the money that went into it from so many people.”

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Fram said the campaign left her convinced that many Americans remain desperate for leaders willing to speak honestly about the country’s direction.

“I think it reinforced every belief that I have that this is a country, an idea, an ideal worth fighting for,” Fram told The Advocate. “There are so many people out there who share that, who are just heartsick at what we as a nation are putting into the world and know that we can do better.”

Fram entered the race after being pushed out of military service under Trump’s renewed ban on transgender troops. Her candidacy quickly became symbolically larger than a single congressional district. At campaign stops across suburban and rural Virginia, Fram often found herself face-to-face with voters who had never knowingly met a transgender person before.

“One was a conversation with a small business owner in rural Virginia who, unbidden by me, started talking about Democrats’ messaging on trans people and ended his discussion with, ‘And I’ve never met a trans person,’” Fram recalled. “I’m like, ‘You’re talking to one.’”

She said conversations like those often shifted once people connected transgender issues to an actual person standing in front of them, rather than political rhetoric or stereotypes. “We don’t shy away from the conversation,” Fram said. “We have to combat some of the misinformation and disinformation that’s out there.”

At a recent gathering of rural Virginia Democrats, Fram said someone asked whether being transgender made her unelectable. “I framed the trans story as this quintessentially American story,” Fram said. “You can think of our country as being assigned British at birth and then realizing we could be better.”

The line earned what Fram described as “the biggest ovation of the night.”

But the moments that appear to have stayed with Fram most were quieter ones: parents thanking her for visibility, or transgender people in rural communities approaching after events to ask tentative questions about themselves. “The person who came up to me after an event out in a rural area and was nervous to ask if I was trans,” Fram said. “And I was like, ‘Yes, I am.’ And then they’re, ‘Oh, I think I am too.’ And getting a hug after that, those moments matter.”

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Though the campaign is ending, Fram said she still plans to support Democratic candidates in Virginia and nationally. She also said she has no intention of stepping away from public life or advocacy. “I won’t back away from my oath to the Constitution,” Fram said. “I just don’t know what form it takes yet.”

For now, though, her attention is turning back to family life. Fram said her oldest child is preparing to graduate from high school, while her younger daughter is finishing seventh grade. She promised them that if they kept their grades up, she would eventually take them on an international trip.

“So I did promise them based on their grades that at some point I would get them their passports and take them on a trip somewhere,” Fram said. “There may be a day or two spent just watching some movies with them and enjoying the time that we have together.”

Even then, she suggested, the pause will be temporary.

“What I absolutely won’t do is run away from this fight,” Fram said.