Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., takes part in a Capitol Hill rally with the Women in the Services Coalition on Thursday, June 5, 2025. The organization’s goals include safeguarding women’s opportunities in the U.S. military, protecting and preserving the legacy of women in service, defending women in military leadership, and strengthening sexual assault prevention and response. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)

WASHINGTON — More than 20 female veterans gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to express their concerns with how women in the armed forces are treated and their frustrations with efforts to erase them from military history.

“I’d rather not be here today. I thought this debate was over,” said Olivia McQuail, who graduated from Army Ranger School in 2021.

The event was orchestrated in conjunction with the Women in the Services Coalition Initiative, or WiSCI, and lasted 45 minutes before veterans went inside to deliver several thousand letters to lawmakers’ offices that stated women have earned their place in the services and women “make our military stronger,” WiSCI founder Sue Fulton said.

The response from female veterans comes after a range of actions taken by President Donald Trump’s administration in the first few months of his second term that have targeted programs and policies that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

Trump signed an executive order on the first day back in office to terminate all diversity programs in the federal government. His administration also began to dismiss many top-ranking female officers from the military. Adm. Linda Fagan, the first woman to the lead the Coast Guard, was the first to be fired.

Other women have been fired since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took over at the Pentagon in January including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the former chief of naval operations, Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee, and Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, a former senior military assistant to the defense secretary.

“These women weren’t promoted through the ranks because of their gender,” said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., a former Air Force officer and a member of the House Armed Services Committee. “They were patriotic ... effective leaders who earned their positions through their merit and their experience and their unwavering commitment to service, just like their male counterparts.”

Houlahan said women make up 18% of the military’s active-duty force, along with 22% of the National Guard and Reserve.

In March, the Defense Department began to purge references to thousands of photos and posts marked as diversity, equity and inclusion content including Medal of Honor recipients, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, and the first women to pass infantry training, The Associated Press reported at the time. The Air Force did restore videos of the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, to its basic training curriculum after being removed.

“We are all losers when we erase the history of women who serve,” Houlahan said Thursday.

In March, Hegseth ordered the military to make physical fitness standards for all combat jobs gender neutral.

“For far too long, we allowed standards to slip and different standards for men and women in combat arms [military occupational specialties],” Hegseth said in a video posted on X at the time. “That’s not acceptable. We need to have the same standard, male or female, in our combat roles.”

McQuail said there is “a kind disinformation campaign circulating” that women want lower standards and lower standards are the only reason women have achieved certain milestones. She went to Ranger School five years after the first two women graduated.

“People always ask me, ‘What was it like as a woman? Were you treated differently?’ I can honestly say no,” she said. “By that time, the groundwork had been laid. It wasn’t a big deal.”

McQuail said she does not want people in the military who aren’t physically or tactically qualified because it is a danger to them and others.

“That’s not what is happening. This rhetoric is a cancer that aims to divide us,” she said. “I want to be very clear, that is a contrived narrative.”

Army veteran Olivia McQuail speaks at a rally on Thursday, June 5, 2025, in front of the U.S. Capitol. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)