Maj. Kara Corcoran uses road trips to remind herself of the beauty and expanse she’s spent 17 years fighting for.

The peace and tranquility of the Colorado and Utah mountains in mid-March are in discord with the whirlwind experiences of the past month for Corcoran, who is stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Corcoran developed her calling for the Army surrounded by a culture of patriotism, in North Attelborough, Massachusetts. She soaked up the history of New England and eagerly listened to stories from her father, a 1972 graduate of West Point; her grandfather, a sergeant major; and her mom, an army brat.

But since February, she’s wrestled with the reality that she’s been deemed unqualified to serve.

In the first week of his second term, President Donald Trump ordered transgender people out of the military ranks, arguing they experience mental and physical conditions that are “incompatible” with military service.

“It's been really hard to do the job and stay strong every day, as policies and orders are being put out to purge us from the U.S. military,” Corcoran says. “There is no valid argument other than discrediting transgender people as human beings, in saying we do not exist.”

The Trump administration directive gives the 4,240 service members who have a gender dysphoria diagnosis, according to the Pentagon, few good options and just 30 days to decide.

The primary choices are to either leave of your own accord or leave involuntarily. Transgender servicemembers could also apply for a waiver that Corcoran says is really hard to get, and personnel with 18 to 20 years of service could apply for early retirement.

Corcoran falls less than a year short of the tenure required.

The news was a gut punch for Corcoran, even if it wasn’t a surprise. Given the options in front of her, Corcoran wanted to fight the directive.

And to do that, she needed to protect her sanity. So, shortly after the news came down, Corcoran took some time off, packed her car and her dog, Rommel, and drove west.

From the Wasatch Mountains to the Canyonlands National Park to the San Juan Mountains, Corcoran travelled to recharge her emotional batteries through nature. She shared self-recorded diaries of the trip with KCUR.

“This is wild,” she said in one of them, making her way through Northwest Colorado. “You're potentially going to be cast out right before you retire, right before you get a master's degree.”

“It's hard not to think about, even though it is absolutely beautiful out here,” she said.

Finding authenticity amid uncertainty

Corcoran recalls feeling early in life that she was supposed to be a girl, not a boy. She also felt a lot of uncertainty in her predominantly Irish-Catholic hometown.

“There's a part of social conditioning,” she says, in a radio studio a few weeks after her trip. “You grow up Catholic, you grow up a certain way.”

She also remembers there wasn’t any sort of education on sexuality or open communication. For most of her early life, she did “all the boy things,” as she says. She played Pop Warner football and spent time adventuring in the woods.

“I'm sure my parents would have supported me but, at the same time, you are like: ‘Well, this is not even possible, and it's probably wrong, so I probably should avoid it,’” Corcoran says.

One thing Corcoran was certain of was what she wanted to do for work. In 2004, still identifying as a man, she enrolled at Norwich University, the military college of Vermont. In 2008, she graduated and was commissioned into the Army.

Throughout this time, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was in effect, meaning gay, lesbian, and bisexual people could serve, so long as they didn’t disclose their sexual orientation. Corcoran says the mindset further ingrained in her was that denial of self was normal.

She got married, had two children, served in Afghanistan, and went to Ranger and Airborne school. But the strain Corcoran felt about hiding her sexuality didn’t fade.

“I would go to work one day as a man, and I would go home as a woman,” she says. “And so I had this superficial, short-term solution.”

In 2016, President Barack Obama lifted the military ban, allowing transgender personnel to serve openly.

Corcoran didn’t rush to tell everyone she was transgender. She took her time telling family, starting with her then-wife, and her friends. It fractured relationships, but Corcoran finally felt free and authentic. In 2018, she began to transition.

“We're human beings, and we need to go through that process to be yourself. Otherwise the next 20 years is going to continue to be a struggle for you, until you actually are able to be yourself,” she says.

A roller coaster

In the years since, policy actions over transgender people in the military have been a series of volleys and counter-volleys between Democratic presidents and Trump.

In his first term, Trump quickly reversed Obama’s repeal. Those efforts were similarly short-lived, and President Joe Biden reopened the military’s doors to transgender troops in 2021.

When Biden announced his plan to repeal the first Trump ban, Corcoran was skiing in Keystone, Colorado. When a judge put a pause on Trump’s second ban, she found herself in a similar setting.

“I went backcountry skiing in the Wasatch and had an amazing time,” she recorded at the time. “And I just got the news that Judge Ana Reyes put an injunction on the executive order banning us from service. I did my happy dance but the moral of the entire story is Kara needs to go skiing more often.”

In total, three federal judges rejected the most recent ban, through all its legal battles .

But this week, the Supreme Court brushed aside Corcoran’s brief reprieve. A panel ruled to allow the ban to be enforced during legal proceedings.

It’s been a roller coaster of emotions for Corcoran, who also serves as the vice president of SPARTA, an organization focused on ensuring the rights and opportunities of transgender service members and aspiring recruits. She has had to balance her own feelings, while providing stability for many others.

Some advocacy groups estimate there are as many as 15,000 troops who identify as transgender.

“All the things that could go wrong, will go wrong — Murphy's Law,” Corcoran says. “Murphy has a vote, but that's the chaos that we operate in in life. And the transgender people in the military, we're resilient.”

Heading west again

For Corcoran, the question of whether transgender people, or anyone for that matter, should serve in the military comes down to: can they do their job, and can they do it well? The rest is gravy, she says.

“There are thousands of transgender service members who are the most qualified in their field, who continue to serve no matter what, because they love this country,” she says.

A 2016 RAND study showed transgender service members create little impact on military readiness and cost. The president’s memo says otherwise.

Hours after the Supreme Court allowed the ban to continue, Corcoran recorded a diary entry while a bugle played in the distance at Fort Leavenworth.

“Just like you can hear the day ending for me, this is also the end of my career,” she said. “It’s 5 o'clock and I need to stand at attention now.”

Corcoran expects to graduate from Advanced Military School later this month, despite the ban. It’s a small relief amid the turmoil. She also was looking forward to a new assignment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where she would have been closer to her daughters, whom she only gets to see a few times a year. She was eager to move to a place where she would have additional support and comfort.

While legal proceedings could go in the favor of transgender service members, she isn’t holding out a ton of hope that a future in the military is on the horizon.

“It’s been a good 17 years,” Corcoran said. “Damn this hurts.”

With her service seemingly at an end, Corcoran will head west again, she says. It’s not a vacation, but she’s still hoping to find respite in friends and, maybe, a new career.