In the predawn hush of a military base, long before the bustle of morning drills, LeAnne Withrow would quietly slip into the women’s shower room. It was always around 2 or 3am— early enough to be sure no one else was there.
Withrow had come out as a transgender woman in 2016, the year before President Donald Trump’s first trans military ban. Her aim, always, was to serve, help fellow soldiers, and go home. Not to become a symbol.
“I’ve gone out of my way, especially early in my transition, to not create issues,” Withrow tells TIME, nine years later. “Just to make sure that I wasn’t going to bother anybody.”
But now, under a new mandate issued by Trump in January—ordering all federal government employees to use facilities that match their sex assigned at birth—Withrow has found herself at the center of a growing legal and political storm.
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In response to the mandate, the Department of Defense and other agencies barred transgender employees from using the restroom that matches their gender identity. The policy change is the subject of a complaint filed to the Army National Guard Bureau of Equal Opportunity Office by Withrow, who now feels as if she’s “walking on eggshells.”
“I do have concerns about where I stop to go to the bathroom,” Withrow, who enlisted in the military in 2010 but now works as a civilian employee of the Illinois National Guard. “Life can be very dangerous for trans people.”
Just one day after the class action complaint was filed, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s transgender military ban could proceed while multiple lawsuits against the order continue to be litigated in the lower courts, echoing a similar decision made during Trump’s previous term.
Buoyed by the decision, the Pentagon has announced it will begin removing at least 1,000 openly transgender troops from the military. Others have been given 30 days to self-identify as transgender, with the Defense Department warning it will review medical records to identify those who do not come forward.
“There are people whose careers and lives will be permanently and irreparably altered by this,” says Withrow. “Even if this gets overturned later in the legal battle, that person’s opportunity to serve might be gone forever.”
Prior to her move from a staff sergeant for the National Guard, Withrow was one of the estimated 4,420 transgender military members who make up 0.2% of all military personnel, according to the Department of Defense. While Withrow will be able to maintain her job as a civilian employee, she fears it will set the tone for how other legal battles against the raft of anti-trans policies may play out.
In January, the Administration threatened to cut federal funding to hospitals that were providing gender-affirming-care to trans youth, and at least one university which allowed a transgender athlete to participate on the women’s swimming team in 2022.
And later this year, the Supreme Court will deliver a decision on U.S. v. Skrmetti, a case challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming-care to minors. Justices are also set to hear a case on the constitutionality of conversion therapy state bans. A new Department of Health and Human Services report, which advocates say recommend conversion therapy as a treatment for gender dysphoria, was released this May.
Withrow is hoping that she will be able to continue her service to military families without discrimination. “I want to help soldiers, families, veterans—and then I want to go home at the end of the day. At some point in between, I will probably need to use the bathroom.”
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