Park ranger fired after helping drape a transgender pride flag on Yosemite’s El Capitan
The Yosemite National Park pulled a ranger from the park last week for suspending a transgender flag on the rocky training of El Capitan of the Park in May.
Shannon “SJ” Joslin, who is a ranger and a fauna biologist in the park since 2021, said that they had been dismissed on August 12 of what they described as their dream work. They said that the park leadership told them that they “had not shown acceptable driving” in their role by participating in the display of the Trans flag.
“I am devastated,” said Joslin, who is trans And use these pronouns. “We do not take our positions in the service of the park to earn money or to have enormous career gains. We take it because we love the places we work. I have a doctorate in bioinformatics, and I could earn much more money in Silicon Valley, which is only a few hours old, but I made the most choice to position myself in Yosemite National Park, because it is the place where I love the most. “.
When he was asked for comments on the dismissal of Joslin, a spokesperson for Yosemite National Park said that the National Park Service, which oversees Yosemite, “continues administrative measures against several employees of the National Park Service for having failed to follow the regulations of the National Park Service”. The spokesman refused to say what regulations that the employees would have raped.
Rachel Pawlitz, spokesperson for the NPS, said that the Agency and the Ministry of Justice “would pursue administrative measures against several employees of the Yosemite National Park and possible criminal accusations against several visitors to the park who would have violated federal laws and regulations related to demonstrations”.
Pawlitz added: “We do not start the details of the actions of the staff or the criminal surveys. However, we want to emphasize that we take the protection of the park’s resources very seriously and the experience of our visitors and will not tolerate the violations of the laws and regulations which have an impact on these resources and experiences. ”
Most demonstrations require a permit, said Pawlitz, and therefore the American prosecutor’s office for the California Oriental District “assesses possible criminal accusations based on a National Park Service investigation.”
Joslin, who is 35 years old and has been going to the park for more than a decade before working there, Written Yosemite climbing guides and volunteered to have overtime to help deliver hiking permits and manage traffic in the park. As a wildlife biologist, they managed the park’s “Big Wall Batts” program to study how bats use cliffs and protect them from a deadly illness called white nose syndrome.
Joslin said they had the idea of suspending the trans-wasted flag on El Capitan in the spring after President Donald Trump published a variety of decrees targeting trans persons, including the modification of the federal sex definition to exclude trans identities, restrict access to trans health care and prohibit trans women from competing female sports.
Joslin said that the flag display, which they organized with other LGBTQ climbers and defenders and participated in working hours outside working hours, was intended to celebrate trans people and show that everyone is welcome in the country’s parks. The flag was on El Capitan for about two hours when park officials told climbers to remove it, although the climbers said at the time that they had not said that they had broken the park’s rules.
About a week after the screen, said Joslin, the park leadership told them that they were the subject of a criminal investigation into the suspension of the flag. After this investigation, acting deputy director Danika Globokar dismissed Joslin because of their participation in what leadership described as the “flag demonstration,” said Joslin.
Joslin said they had asked for evidence proving that the flag display was a demonstration, but said management had not provided.
They also quoted the long history of a variety of flags piloted on the facial of the rock, including by park employees. For example, the park employees stole an American flag upside down during the Yosemite Fire Fall Fall event in February to protest against the Trump administration of the National Park Service employees. A group of activists also raised a flag “stop the genocide” on El Capitan in favor of the Palestinians in Gaza in June 2024.
There was no policy prohibiting the display of flags on El Capitan until the day after Joslin and their team hung the Trans flag, when the NP published a new rule prohibiting the suspension of large flags in wild areas. Yosemite Leadership has updated the collection of the Superintendent 2024 to include the update.
“The suspension of flags was a tradition that climbers have made on El Cap for decades, and it is the two people who visit the park, but also employees who are on their time,” said Joslin. “There has never been ramifications in any of these flag -suspended activities. I am the only one to have been dismissed for this.”
Joslin said two other NPS employees – one who works in Yosemite and another who works in a different park – is the subject of a survey for helping to display the Trans flag.
Joslin said that being dismissed from a federal position will affect their ability to work for the government or any other park in the future. They plan to request a legal advisor to try to challenge the decision, quoting a decree that Trump issued the first day of his presidency to protect freedom of expression and put an end to federal censorship.
“I’m going to fight this tooth and this nail,” said Joslin. “I think that everyone as a lover should be upset on this subject, and it doesn’t matter who I am or what is my identity, it is a question of freedom of expression.”
