EXCLUSIVE — A senior Biden administration Pentagon official responsible for military readiness asked the White House for opportunities to help promote Transgender Day of Visibility and Pride Month in 2023 as the armed forces struggled with a historic recruiting shortfall, according to emails shared with the Washington Examiner.Shawn G. Skelly, then the assistant secretary of defense for readiness, wrote White House staffer Hannah Bristol on March 1, 2023, saying Skelly wanted to support the administration’s efforts on behalf of the LGBT community. The emails were shared with the Washington Examiner by the Center for Advancing Security in America, a conservative watchdog group, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request on April 11, 2024, and sued the then-Defense Department in August that year after the group said it had not received the requested records.“I do windows. I’ll pitch in on anything that would assist the White House’s efforts, nothing’s too big or too small,” Skelly, a biological man who identifies as a woman, wrote after mentioning the upcoming Transgender Day of Visibility and Pride Month at the time. “I simply cannot sit this year out.”
Bristol replied the next day that the White House was finalizing plans for Transgender Day of Visibility and would “love for you to plug in.” Bristol also invited Skelly to suggest other ways the White House could support “the community.” At the time of the email exchange, the military faced a dramatic deficit of more than 40,000 needed recruits compared to its standard averages.Skelly called the readiness appointment “the absolute honor of my professional life” but wrote in the email about still feeling “bothered” by not doing “anything specific” to assist LGBT people. Skelly said the offer to help promote LGBT issues extended beyond normal work hours, whether at the Pentagon, visiting service members and civilian workers at the Pentagon, or at home on a “day off.”A March 1, 2023, email shows then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness Shawn G. Skelly offering White House help with Transgender Day of Visibility and Pride Month efforts. (CASA)
