First promotion of an openly transgender Naval officer

by Rob Howard
Associate Editor

It was just two and a half months ago that Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that the DOD was ending the ban on transgender Americans serving in the United States military. Effective July 1, Carter ordered that “Otherwise qualified Service members can no longer be involuntarily separated, discharged, or denied reenlistment or continuation of service solely for being transgender individuals.”

Blake Dremann was there for the announcement of that change in policy. Dremann, then a Lieutenant, is an openly transgender member of the military. Today, Dremann is in the news again as a history making event took place.

“Last Friday,” reports NewNowNext.com, “Navy Lt. Commander Blake Dremann became the first openly trans service member to be promoted since the Navy lifted its ban on transgender troops two and a half months ago.”

NBC News reported on the ceremony. “Flanked by the American, Navy and Senior Executive Service flags, wearing his male summer whites and surrounded by his parents, family, friends, admirals, officers and representatives from a number of advocacy groups, Dremann stood to attention at the front of the President's Room at the Navy Memorial.

"’I couldn't have asked for better people, a better place, or a better person to swear me in. I wouldn't have changed a thing,’ Dremann told NBC OUT.”

NBC noted that everyone on his promotion stage was transgender. Dremann was promoted by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy Amanda Simpson, who was the first transgender woman appointee ever in the US government, and today is the highest ranking transgender person in the DOD, as well as the federal government.

According to NBC, “This isn't the first time Dremann has found himself being a first. In 2011 he was one of the first female- bodied sailors to integrate submarines. ‘While it was a big deal to be the first, we did the job just like any sailor aboard a submarine,’ he said. ‘We proved that neither gender nor sex-assigned-at-birth had anything to do with how well we performed.’

“During his 10-year career, Dremann has deployed 11 times and has been stationed inside the Pentagon since 2015. Although he's been promoted in rank from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander, his job will stay the same.”

In addition to his Navy assignments, Dremann is the President of SPART*A, the trans military organization, which has more than 500 trans active duty or veteran members.

Copyright 2016 The Gayly – September 16, 2016 @ 10:15 a.m.