Since President Donald Trump regained office in January 2025, he and his administration have waged an all-out war against the LGBTQ community.
This has led queer Americans to move to other countries at unprecedented rates—Rainbow Railroad, a Canadian nonprofit that supports LGBTQ asylum seekers, reported receiving a huge increase in inquiries from the U.S. last year.
The same pattern is playing out within the government. And it’s leading to a brain drain of competent queer employees and allies who are either resigning or being fired, often because of their LGBTQ identity or their belief that queer people deserve basic human rights.
Here are six examples of federal workers who had a messy exit from Trump 2.0:
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis
WHAT HE DID: Dr. Daskalakis is one of the foremost LGBTQ health professionals in the U.S. Under Trump’s first term, he was appointed director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Under Biden, he also served as the deputy response coordinator for mpox at the White House.
WHAT HAPPENED: While he continued a lot of this work under Trump 2.0, he didn’t last long. In August 2025, he resigned from the CDC, writing in his resignation letter that he was “unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.”
BOTTOM LINE: I recently interviewed with Dr. Daskalakis, where he told me that leadership from RFK Jr.’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Department justified HIV cuts by saying the virus is “just too woke.”
Julia Curlee
WHAT SHE DID: Julia Curlee worked in intelligence for nearly two decades between the CIA and the National Security Council (NSC). Earlier this week, she wrote an article in The Atlantic explaining how she had served as Mike Pence’s daily briefer and the NSC’s director for intelligence programs. During Trump 1.0, she briefed the President on Air Force One.
WHAT HAPPENED: Curlee told CNN this week that in Trump’s second term, her treatment by the federal government transformed. She was no longer allowed to use the women’s bathroom on federal property and had to leave her workplace to relieve herself. Her passport was also reissued to read “male,” which led to complications when traveling abroad. In March 2025, less than 70 days into Trump’s second term, Curlee says she received a call while at a rib joint in Virginia with her family informing her that her White House tour was over and that they couldn’t tell her why. She continued to work for the CIA for some months, but she later resigned.
BOTTOM LINE: Curlee wrote that moments after she learned she was fired from the White House, she saw a post from right-wing political activist Laura Loomer that read “A transgender, Biden holdover who hates President Trump is still working in the NSC intel office. I’m told there are several NSC staffers who have complained that this Trans Biden holdover hasn’t been fired yet, but nothing is being done about it.”
Marc Seawright
WHAT HE DID: Marc Seawright worked for more than eight years at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Most recently, he served as the EEOC’s director of information governance and strategy, where he oversaw tech policy to help combat workplace harassment and discrimination.
WHAT HAPPENED: During Trump 2.0, Seawright was ordered to develop technology that would erase any mention of LGBTQ identities from EEOC outreach materials. “[My expertise] was being leveraged to perpetuate discrimination against people like me,” he told the Associated Press. In that article, Seawright and other transgender and gender nonconforming federal employees described their “fear, grief, frustration and distress working for the federal government at a time when it rejects them—often with no clear path for recourse or support.”
BOTTOM LINE: Seawright quit in June, citing a hostile work environment. “It became overwhelming. It felt insurmountable,” he told the AP. He has now hired lawyers at Katz Banks Kumin and has filed a discrimination complaint.
David Maltinsky
WHAT HE DID: Until 2025, Maltinsky worked for more than 16 years at the FBI as an intelligence specialist. In 2025, he was training to become a special agent, but three weeks ahead of graduation, he was fired.
WHAT HAPPENED: On Oct. 1, he was delivered a letter from FBI Director Kash Patel informing him that he was being fired for an “inappropriate display of political signage.” The signage in question, according to Maltinsky, was a pride flag displayed in his work station at a previous post in Los Angeles. The flag had been given to him by the FBI’s LA Field Office, and Maltinsky says he had been told by multiple supervisors that displaying it would not be a violation.
BOTTOM LINE: Maltinsky is currently suing the FBI and the Department of Justice, arguing that his firing constituted unlawful discrimination.
Mary Brinkmeyer
WHAT SHE DID: Brinkmeyer had been working as a psychologist for the Department of Veterans Affairs since 2008. She held multiple leadership roles, including the LGBTQ+ veteran care coordinator at the Hampton VA Medical Center. She established the first military support group for trans servicemembers and was awarded Navy Psychology Civilian Psychologist of the Year in 2016.
WHAT HAPPENED: Following an early Trump executive order directing the federal government to purge any practices promoting “gender ideology,” Brinkmeyer says staff at her workplace were told to remove all LGBTQ-affirming materials from both public and private areas, as well as to identify “anything in medical records, training materials, or patient resources that could be considered ‘gender ideology.’” When she refused to comply and confronted her supervisor, she says her concerns were dismissed.
BOTTOM LINE: Brinkmeyer resigned in February 2025, stating that she “didn’t want to be complicit in something that I knew was wrong.”
Amy Paris
WHAT SHE DID: Paris was the second-highest ranking trans woman in the federal government, serving as a deputy digital services lead in the HHS Department, where she oversaw the safety of organ donations. Prior to that, she worked in a number of tech-related roles across the federal government since the Bush administration. She helped create cross-agency spending trackers, streamlined unemployment insurance during the pandemic and implemented trans-inclusive policies like gender-neutral passports.
WHAT HAPPENED: Paris was fired as part of a string of mass layoffs across the federal government in February 2025. While the HHS did not publicly comment on why she was fired, Paris says she was told it was because of her performance, despite the fact that she got a 4.75 out of five on her last performance review and was praised for her work by multiple Biden administration officials.
BOTTOM LINE: Paris told The 19th she suspected her firing was politically motivated, saying the Trump administration is “trying to sow discord and disrupt confidence in the workings of the federal government.”
Uncloseted Media is taking a week off from Aug. 24 to Aug. 30. So there won’t be any new stories. But don’t fret, we’ll be back Sept. 1 with a new investigation.
Our two-year anniversary is coming up on Sept. 3. Be on the lookout for celebratory posts, an anniversary-themed newsletter and more.
I was on the POWER BEYOND PRIDE podcast, where I joined Daniel W.K. Lee and Kate d’Adamo to talk about launching Uncloseted Media. In the episode, we speak about media fragmentation, journalistic standards, representation and the responsibility to tell complicated stories with nuance. Watch here:
Actor Hayden Panettiere, known for roles in ‘Heroes’ and ‘Nashville,’ dies at 36 (NBC News)
Panettiere, 36, was found unresponsive Sunday at an apartment complex where she had temporarily been staying and was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said Monday.
Russian LGBTQ rights group to shut down (Washington Blade)
Russian LGBT Network in April declared ‘extremist’ organization
Gay principal says school board made up fake pedophilia allegations to fire him (LGBTQ Nation)
He says Moms for Liberty-backed school board members wanted him out because he’s gay.
Third S.F. gay bar pauses use of facial recognition technology amid privacy concerns (San Francisco Chronicle)
The Mix Bar in San Francisco’s Castro district has paused the use of facial recognition technology after privacy advocates threatened a boycott.
Canadian director refused to work on new Harry Potter show over ‘transphobia’ (CBC)
Ally Pankiw posted exchange on social media referencing author J.K. Rowling’s controversial views
Over the next week, be on the lookout for new Uncloseted reporting:
🆕 SATURDAY: In our next podcast episode, I interview Tristan Schukraft, the CEO of MISTR, the owner of the Abbey and many LGBTQ-themed hotels in Fire Island and Puerto Vallarta and widely known as the CEO of Everything Gay. Schukraft, who told me he is a billionaire, dishes on how he how he manages 68 businesses as well as *five* (yes, you read that right) boyfriends.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to email me with questions, complaints and story ideas!
Spencer Macnaughton, Editor-In-Chief — spencer@unclosetedmedia.com
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