EXCLUSIVE: Air Force Marks Pride Month with CEO Supporting Child Gender Transitions

The Department of the Air Force hosted a two-day pride month celebration that featured the CEO of an organization that advocates for children to undergo irreversible medical sex change procedures and pushes sexually explicit LGBT books onto children, The Daily Wire has learned.

A promotional Air Force poster advertising the “DAF Pride Celebration,” exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire, reveals how the military branch celebrated pride month, showing that the CEO of the pro-transgender organization PFLAG, Brian Bond, was a keynote speaker at the event.

PFLAG is one of the nation’s most prominent pro-transgender organizations. Under Bond’s leadership, it has fervently opposed legislation that seeks to protect children from cross-sex hormone treatments and sex change procedures.

The event is being promoted on posters inside the Pentagon office space, according to images obtained by The Daily Wire. It was scheduled to take place in the Pentagon courtyard.

Bond’s radical organization has a “transgender reading list for children” which includes “I Am Jazz,” which it described as a story about “a transgender child based on the real-life experience of Jazz Jennings.” There’s also the “Gender Now Coloring Book,” which is “meant to provide reflection and support unity by showing multiple genders standing together.”

Another book on the list, called “What Makes a Baby,” is said to be a “children’s book that takes gender out of making a baby.” The book’s author, Cory Silverberg, is one of the founders of what has been referred to as a “beginner’s sex store” in Toronto. He has also authored “Sex is a Funny Word,” a children’s book that discusses “transgender identity, intersex conditions, and masturbation.”

A Pentagon source told The Daily Wire that the event is indicative of “misplaced” focus in the military, which is losing sight of its main purpose: fighting wars.

“We are bombarded with emails, memos, official messages, meetings, and gatherings for special interest groups and social issues, but nary a word is issued about our warfighting heritage,” the source said. “This is indicative of a much larger problem in the Pentagon: more time and effort is spent on social programs and issues than preparing for war. The focus is misplaced, and taxpayers should know what they are paying for.”

PFLAG has taken legal action against Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina after the states sought to protect children from medical interventions like cross-sex hormone therapy injections and sex-change surgeries.

“Families need to be free to access care that is in their child’s best interest,” the organization argued in a statement that also said, “‘medical bans’ criminalize treating a transgender child under the age of 18, imposing penalties on parents and health care providers.”

The military branch hosted a range of different activities and speakers for Pride Month beyond just the PFLAG CEO. The event schedule included “queer trivia,” as well as speaker sessions on “LGBTQ+ & Organizational Culture” and the “LGBTQ+ Civilian and Service Experience.”

Opening comments on the second day of the event were offered by Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram, an engineer with the United States Space Force and activist for pro-transgender policies in the military. The Daily Wire previously discovered that the Air Force Academy hosted Fram for a symposium where he spoke to cadets about transgender inclusion.

Fram, a man who identifies as a woman, also addressed a Pride celebration where he called for those in the military to “initiate difficult conversations about racial and gender barriers.”

WATCH🎥: The U.S. Air Force Academy hosted a transgender Pentagon official for a symposium on inclusion. Our military is focused on transgender dogma while wars rage on two continents.

Here he is at a pride celebration calling for “intentional inclusivity” in the military 🧵 pic.twitter.com/6BAbEwrS4j

— Spencer Lindquist 🇺🇸 (@SpencerLndqst) February 29, 2024

Another session appears to advertise a pro-transgender activist group within the military called “SPARTA,” which calls itself “a beacon for transgender individuals who currently serve or have served in the U.S. military.”

Another one of the speakers was Technical Sergeant Evelyn Lee, a member of SPARTA, who the organization described as “the first United States Air Force airman to begin a successful gender transition while stationed on the Korean Peninsula.” Lee is also credited with “shaping Department of the Air Force policies to better accommodate transgender service members.”

Lt. Gen. Leah Lauderback, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance and Cyber Effects Operations in the Air Force, is listed as another speaker. Lauderback was one of the cofounders of the LGBTQ Initiative Team, a “barriers analysis working group” that “focuses on the LGBTQ community and identifies and works to resolve the issues that disproportionately impede the success of LGBTQ Airmen and Guardians.”

An Air Force Spokeswoman told The Daily Wire that the June 6 event was hosted by volunteers associated with the LGBTQ Initiative Team and that “appropriated funds were not expended for the speaker and attendance was strictly voluntary.”

“The Department of Defense encourages special observances to recognize the continuous achievements of all Americans and to increase awareness, mutual respect, and understanding,” the spokeswoman went on to add. “They are designed to enhance cross-cultural competencies and promote harmony among all military members, their families, and the DoD civilian workforce.”

This DAF celebration is far from the first time that the military and other agencies tasked with preserving our national security have pushed the LGBT Pride agenda. Even the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center is hosting its own Pride Month event, called the “LGBTQ+ Cross-Cultural Mentoring Panel.”

The Pentagon has worked to institutionalize leftwing gender ideology and the broader diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda, even requesting $114 million in taxpayer funding to support “unconscious bias diversity training” and “training programs and diversity and inclusion initiatives.”

The leftwing ideology appears to have trickled down throughout the entire federal bureaucracy and military, with a recent Daily Wire investigation revealing that a summer camp exclusively for children of military families asked about the gender identities of six-year-olds, including the options transgender and non-binary on its sign-up form.

Former President Donald Trump has pledged to use executive orders to fire leftwing bureaucrats who might otherwise obstruct his policy agenda. “We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States,” Trump said at a rally, touting his plan, adding that the deep state “must be brought to heel.”

The Biden administration recently moved to strengthen job protections for bureaucrats in what appears to be a preemptive response to Trump’s plan.

In the event that Trump is able to fire leftwing bureaucrats, however, his supporters may have an opportunity to join executive agencies en masse. Allies of the former president are preparing to fill the void left by outgoing bureaucrats, with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 assembling a personnel database that could step into the administration in the event that Trump beats Biden in November.

PFLAG did not respond to a request for comment.

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