Editor’s Note: In 2010, U.S. Navy aviator Lt. Cmdr. Brynn Tannehill made the very personal and arduous decision to begin the gender transition process. Like other service members dealing with acute medical concerns, she entered the Individual Ready Reserve until she was ready to return to service. While in the IRR, however, she was considered to have failed to be selected for promotion twice for O-5 (Commander). This prompted her separation from the Navy in June 2017 at the 20-year up-or-out mark, forcing an end to her military aviation career.
Tannehill was later offered a path to return to the cockpit as a UH-60 Black Hawk pilot for the California Army National Guard, which was in need of pilots to help combat wildfires in the state. The blemish of timing out through two-time non-selection in the IRR on her military record, however, became a barrier to her service in the National Guard, despite an impeccable service record, high-level clearances, and personal endorsements from members of Congress, a former undersecretary of defense, the assistant adjutant general of the California National Guard, the major general serving as the special assistant to the secretary of the army for manpower and reserve affairs, and California Governor Gavin Newsom.
