The military community in San Diego has deep roots and a rich legacy of service. Now, there’s a small fraction of those in uniform who are being told they can no longer represent the country, and their next steps are unclear.
More than 100,000 active duty personnel are based in San Diego County, with around half of those at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, according to its website. That is where Sye Savoie is currently based. They are a Marine Corps captain, currently within Wounded Warrior Battalion West, and have served for seven years.
They also identify as nonbinary, under the transgender umbrella. “I realized that [about myself] circa 2020, so about two years after I commissioned as an officer,” Savoie told NBC San Diego.
However, it was much earlier in life, growing up in a Catholic community in Atlanta that Savoie set their sights on being a Marine.
“A lot of the people in my community were Marines. Whether it was people I went to church with or people that were, like, running for city council and they were revered by the population,” Savoie said. “Not only were they revered, it was with good reason. These folks were kind, empathetic, strong, powerful leaders that also led with a graceful hand and I saw that the way my parents and my community turned to them in times of trouble, or for advice, and I wanted to be that rock and that touchstone for my community.”
Savoie shared that they started having conversations with the Marines in their circle and one warned them of the obstacles they would face, at the time, as a woman.
“My uncle was in the Army for a while, and he knew one of the sergeant majors of the Marine Corps, so when I met with that guy, I was maybe 16 or 17 years old, and we had a really powerful conversation after a church service, and he looked at me, and he said, ‘Just so you know, being a female in the Marine Corps is going to be the hardest thing you ever do,’” Savoie recalled. “Unfortunately, the joke's on him in that having a gender dysphoria diagnosis and being in the Marine Corps has been the hardest thing I’ve had to do.”
Savoie told NBC San Diego they chose to be transparent about their identity with their fellow Marines when they first transitioned because they felt comfortable doing so, especially during former President Joe Biden’s time in office. However, when President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term in January of this year, that quickly changed.
On Jan. 27, Trump announced an executive order titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness.” It states that, “expressing a false 'gender identity' divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.” The order then continues to say, “beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
On May 6, after a court challenge, the Supreme Court granted the Trump Administration the ability to move forward with the order. That same day, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, delivered a keynote speech at Special Operations Forces Week 2025, that was clipped and posted in a public video on the verified X account for DOD Rapid Response, and said, “We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind. No more pronouns. No more climate-change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates. No more dudes in dresses.”
The following week, on May 15, a memo was sent to every branch of the military from the U.S. Department of Defense that stated that all transgender personnel would need to self-identify and begin a voluntary leave process by Jun. 6 for active duty and Jul. 7 for those in the reserves. A transcript posted on the DOD’s website on the same day, that cited a “Senior Defense Official” without listing their name, explained that those who chose to leave would be compensated based on “rank as well as time in service.”
The DOD transcript explained further, that all transgender personnel who leave because of this will receive some benefits, but that it is greater for those who start the process on their own accord.
“So, for involuntary category separation, an E-5 with 10 years of service, we estimate that that involuntary separation payment would be just under $51,000. For an O-3 with seven years in service that involuntary separation pay would be approximately $62,000. The way the voluntary separation pay is calculated is a multiple of two from the involuntary, so that E-5 with 10 years would be approximately $101,000 and the O-3 with seven years in service would be approximately $125,000,” the transcript said.
On Aug. 7, however, it was reported by NBC News that the Air Force is denying early retirement to all transgender service members with between 15 and 18 years of military service, opting instead to force them out with no retirement benefits, according to a memo seen by Reuters.
The DOD transcript also explained that, “for those that elect not to voluntarily participate, the primary means of identification for the involuntary process will be through medical readiness programs. Individual medical readiness programs are a long-standing program and policy in the department. They are not new. They are not tied specifically to the implementation of this policy.”
Savoie told NBC San Diego they chose to stay, and not begin that voluntary separation process, as an act of resistance.
“There’s a lot of reasons to that,” Savoie said. “I don’t have dependents that are specifically banking on me having a paycheck. I know you’re probably familiar with the buyout option that they gave, so double what your normal separation pay would be. For me, to be transparent with you, that was about $100,000, so a significant chunk of income. That’s about a year’s worth of income for me; it wasn’t worth it.”
“I didn’t commission to make the easy choice, and in this position, when you’re faced with choices like these, are you going to make them on principle or are you going to make them on what the easy way out is. That’s not everyone’s scenario, but it is for me,” Savoie continued. “I should caveat and say anyone who’s taking this right now is under duress. Like it is a forced thing and, again, it does not come without risk. We don’t know what they’re going to do to us right now.”
Savoie said they do have concerns for the future, including which separation code will be used for them if they are forced to leave the Marines and how that could impact their future employment opportunities.
NBC San Diego reached out to Savoie’s command and the public affairs team for the USMC Manpower and Reserve Affairs office for more information on their status, as well as the status of other transgender servicemembers. They forwarded the request to the Pentagon, where the on-duty public affairs officer referred NBC San Diego to the department's May 15 transcript.
When it comes to how many servicemembers, including Savoie, may be impacted by Trump's executive order, in that transcript, the unnamed senior defense official said, “the Department has cited a previous study that estimated approximately 4,200 service members with gender dysphoria. I have not seen a more recent study the department is relying on. So, that would be the most recent study that we would rely on. And of course, that may not be current as of today because service members are entering and departing service in the normal course of events all the time.”
Savoie echoed that, saying “there’s not great numbers on how many transgender people are in the military."
"From the communities that I am a part of and my experience working and connecting with other trans service members, I would guesstimate there’s maybe seven or eight transgender officers in the Marine Corps," they said. "Some of those I know are not out right now and others, they fly under the radar. Others are taking the retirement and just kind of want to gracefully exit because they’ve already done their part and they’ve had to fight their fights under the first ban, and they’re tired.”
If it were up to Savoie — who has continues to show up for work each day, unsure of what comes next — they said they would serve until their EAS, or end of active service, in 2028.
This story first appeared on NBC San Diego.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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