Transgender CIA Agent Blames Leakers and Right-Wing Provocateur Laura Loomer for Her Firing From Trump's White House: 'I Was the Wrong Kind of American'
Julia Curlee had a high-profile job in the White House – until Lauren Loomer threatened to expose her as a transexual woman.
Aug. 18 2026, Published 3:05 p.m. ET
A former CIA agent who held several crucial jobs in Donald Trump's White House was widely celebrated and respected, RadarOnline.com can report, until her identity as a transgender woman was threatened to be made public.
Julia Curlee's identity had been known and accepted for years as she worked closely with the president and Vice President Mike Pence. However, after right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer nearly exposed her, her services were suddenly no longer welcome.
Julia Curlee's Gender Was Never an Issue
The Trump administration knew and did not care about Julia Curlee's gender.
Curlee dreamed of becoming an intelligence officer since childhood. She detailed in a first-person account published in The Atlantic, how she joined the CIA in 2007 and became the first officer at the agency to transition openly and continue serving.
Her identity was never a secret inside the government, and there were apparently no hesitations when Curlee was soon tasked with briefing senior White House officials during Trump's first term. She later became Pence's personal daily intelligence briefer.
"The White House had needed me," Curlee writes. "Trump officials had known I was trans from day one." The vice president spent years opposing marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights.
However, Curlee says Pence treated her as a trusted professional. When her assignment with him ended, Pence welcomed Curlee's family to the White House, where he took her mother’s hand and said, "You must be very proud of your daughter."
Laura Loomer Looms Large
Right-wing commentator Loomer apparently found out a transgender individual was working in the White House.
Curlee continued working in the White House, keeping a similar job when Joe Biden moved in in 2021. But her life and her role changed when Trump reclaimed the White House in 2025.
On Trump's first day back in office, he signed an executive order directing the federal government to recognize only two sexes. Curlee began leaving the White House complex and headed to nearby coffee shops just to use the restroom.
Still, she faithfully stayed on the job and received little to no pushback. Until the day Loomer tweeted: "SCOOP: A transgender, Biden holdover who hates President Trump is still working in the NSC intel office. If you are aware of this person and have their name, please send it to me, and I will post their identity."
Curlee was fired almost immediately – and then asked to return to work temporarily in secret. She claimed she received a message: "We need you. We need your service. But we don’t want anyone to know you are here."
'The Wrong Kind of American'
Curlee, who spent years answering directly to Mike Pence, was soon fired.
She spent the next three days helping finish the budget and handed off the portfolio and paperwork she had overseen for two years. And then she walked out the door for the last time.
"As I walked out the north gate with my small box of belongings, I finally understood the warning: 'Be discreet," Curlee recalled. "This hadn't been an issue until it was public – and then nothing else I'd done mattered. Not my service, not my war-zone tours, not even which restroom I used."
"I was the wrong kind of American," she added.
'That Promise Has Been Broken'
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She can no longer support or promote the CIA for trans people.
Curlee originally beamed about her pride in all she had accomplished, regularly saying, "trans kids should know, CIA is always recruiting."
However, after her termination, her pride turned to pity.
"That promise has been broken," she shared. "I cannot in good conscience advise LGBTQ Americans to join the CIA – and that sentence is the hardest thing I have ever written."
