U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda has filed a congressional inquiry on behalf of an Army sergeant from Schofield Barracks.
Her name is Clara Davis, and she believes she was the first soldier to be involuntarily discharged from the military because of President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops.
Sgt. Davis enlisted in 2019 and was deployed during the Afghanistan withdrawal and provided security for refugees in Bahrain. She was stationed at Schofield Barracks as a military police investigator and patrol supervisor until last October.
Davis’ supervisors cited Executive Order 14183 as reason for her dismissal. The order, which was issued by Trump in early 2025, states that the government’s policy of establishing “high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity” is “inconsistent” with the “constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria.”
In an email to HPR, Tokuda called Davis “an outstanding military police leader.”
Sgt. Davis spoke with HPR about her ongoing efforts to fight her removal from the military.
Interview Highlights
On the sex discrimination involved in her case
SGT. CLARA DAVIS: The reason why I say it's sex discrimination is because THE military has been trying to state and assert that I have gender dysphoria, and I do not have gender dysphoria. I do not have gender dysphoria, and my legal attorney heavily states that too. … So basically, the concern that I have is that all of my documentation all says female, from my driver's license all the way to, you know, a passport and stuff. They all say female. So, what the concern of this can be is that this doesn't just apply to transgender service members. It can apply to anyone. The military, specific with my case, as they've proven, is that it can quite literally go as far as ‘we can tell by our eyes and ears that this soldier does not apply, or this soldier has gender dysphoria, and that they should be kicked out of the military.’ And that's an issue where it just leads to where, how is that fair for any service member? Because one of the things I've come to learn, one, being a leader in the military and just kind of just growing up in the military, is that human beings come in all sorts of different shapes, forms, and sizes, and different tones and different appearances. And when you judge someone by how they look and how they sound, it really degrades; like it just takes away so much talent from the military.
On being removed from the military
DAVIS: They lost a regular patrol supervisor, an MPI investigator, and then they also lost a team leader, and they also lost a person who was a barracks manager, and then also as another instructor for another class that I had to attend. So I had like five different roles that I was filling, and now, all of a sudden, my unit, who was really short-staffed at the time, had to fill that gap, and they had a really hard time doing it. … And even still to this day, the one thing I want to do is, I want to go back to work. I want to work alongside my soldiers, because that's what I love doing. I want to, you know, learn to help teach them how to help do their jobs better, and just ultimately just keep everyone safe. That's my whole responsibility that I took really to heart.
On fighting her involuntary discharge
DAVIS: I'm going to fight tooth and nail for this uniform, because that is something that I have served and have worn honorably, and it is something that I'm willing to fight tooth and nail for. …
There's times where I'm just sitting there at my computer looking at case law and so many other things, I'm just like, 'Oh, my gosh. Is this even worth it?' And every single time, I tell myself it is absolutely worth it. ... I imagine your first thought and some of the viewer's thoughts may be like, 'how can you trust these people after this?' And the simple answer is I can still do my job. That's the thing. I know how capable I'm at doing my job, and my work outshines any sort of ever so slight mistrust that I might have. … If I was told, 'hey, your separations, you know, you're not being separated anymore, come back to work,' I'd be like, 'okay.' I'll put on my uniform right then and there, show up to work and do that. And it's just so hard to equate, and I think it's just because I love what I do, I love serving my country, and I love being a member of the military.
HPR reached out to the U.S. Army for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda’s full official statement on Sgt. Davis can be read below:
“Sergeant Clara Davis is an outstanding military police leader who has spent her career keeping our installations and personnel safe. Pushing her out through a bigoted and biased medical review has nothing to do with her fitness to serve and everything to do with the Trump administration's use of discriminatory policies to force out qualified leaders from our armed forces. I will continue to fight to defend against these injustices, just as I did when I filed a congressional inquiry with the Army on behalf of Sgt. Davis, and I will always stand with her and others facing attacks from this administration."
This story aired on The Conversation on Aug. 25, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
