[Image: The stage for March For Our Lives, with San Francisco City Hall in the background.]
Today’s post on Medium, “Marching for (some) lives“, contains photos and thoughts on Saturday’s March For Our Lives rally in San Francisco.
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[Image: Nava Mau, Lexi Adsit, and Star Amerasu participate in a roundtable discussion.]
Today’s post on Medium, “Trans women of color speak on the politics of visibility“, contains photos and thoughts about yesterday’s roundtable discussion on the politics of transgender visibility.
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[Image: A crowd heads up Polk Street during the March to Remember and Reclaim Queer Space.]
Today’s post on Medium, “Reclaiming and remembering queer space“, contains photos and thoughts about Saturday’s march in San Francisco’s Polk Gulch.
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[Image: Hope Bohanec introduces Karen Davis, president and founder of United Poultry Concerns.]
Today’s post on Medium, “Vegan ruminations“, contains photos and thoughts about the subjects raised at the 2018 Conscious Eating Conference. This story is unlocked, so everyone can read it; please share if you like it.
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[Image: Protesters march behind a banner reading “Stop All Deportations!”]
Today’s post on Medium, “Nation of immigrants“, is about last week’s protest of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in San Francisco. This story is unlocked, so everyone can read it; please share if you like it.
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[Image: Protesters fill United Nations Plaza at dusk.]
Today’s post on Medium, “Documenting the resistance“, revisits my year of protest photos. This story is unlocked, so everyone can read it; please share if you like it.
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[Image: Protesters speak at a Refuse Fascism rally in Union Square, San Francisco.]
Today’s post on Medium, “System working as intended“, contains photos from the November 4 Refuse Fascism protest in San Francisco (full set here) and thoughts on politics, religion, violence, and the need for a peaceful revolution.
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[Image: Headshot of Pax (by Ziggy Tomcich) with the words “San Francisco Bay Area Inclusivity Conference – Prioritizing Harm Free(dom) For Our Future”.]
Update, October 15: This conference has been postponed; see explanation on Facebook.
Next weekend, I will be presenting at the Inclusivity Conference, hosted by Vegan Leadership in Oakland, California. In my presentation, I will discuss gender diversity, giving basic education on transgender, non-binary, and intersex terminology, and suggestions on how cisgender people can demonstrate allyship with the community.
I’ll also show photos I’ve taken at events in the San Francisco Bay Area, highlighting the role of queer and trans people of color in social justice movements, and discussing how vegan ethics have informed my activism and political outlook.
The conference is on October 21 and 22, 2017, and will be catered by S+M Vegan. Other featured speakers include A. Breeze Harper of the Sistah Vegan Project and lauren Ornelas of the Food Empowerment Project. My talk is scheduled for October 22 at 1:30 p.m. You can get tickets to the event (sliding scale), or donate to help with expenses, at the conference web site.
[Image: Protesters, led by Sunsara Taylor of Refuse Fascism, kneel with raised signs and fists.]
Today’s post on Medium, “Freedom to oppress: Berkeley’s civil war“, has photos and thoughts on freedom of speech and Berkeley Free Speech Week. My full set of photos from Sunday’s protest in Berkeley is on Flickr; some are also on Wikimedia Commons, alongside photos from other contributors. Please credit me as Pax Ahimsa Gethen if you use any of my photos, thanks.
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[Image: Protesters at a DACA rally hold signs and banners in support of the “dreamers”.]
On Tuesday evening my partner Ziggy and I joined hundreds of demonstrators outside the San Francisco Federal Building in protest of the rescission of DACA, President Obama’s executive order that protected hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children. Rescinding this order was one of Donald Trump’s campaign promises, so the development was not exactly a surprise. But it was cowardly of Trump to send Attorney General Jeff Sessions out to make the actual announcement, while Trump professed his “love” for the “dreamers” he seeks to send back to countries that many of them don’t even remember.
[Image: A protester holds a sign reading “Ningun Ser Humano Es Ilegal / No Human Being Is Illegal”.]
By the time I read the news on Tuesday, protests were already happening in cities throughout the country, including Washington D.C., Denver, and outside the Trump Tower in New York. Though I’ve grown weary of attending anti-Trump protests, I thought it was important for me to come to this one, to add my body and voice to the huge opposition to this move. It’s politically motivated, cruel, racist (the majority of those affected came from Mexico), and serves no positive purpose, to national security or anything else.
[Image: A protester holds signs in English and Spanish.]
The rally began outside the Federal Building, but soon spilled into the street. There was some confusion as organizers were only using a megaphone at first, but eventually we made our way (flocked by many police officers, as well as safety monitors in orange vests) to a makeshift stage with proper speakers (which Ziggy helped adjust briefly). I couldn’t get close enough to get decent photos of those speaking, but powerful words and songs were shared, with at least one speaker breaking down in tears.
[Image: Protesters fill the intersection of Seventh and Mission.]
[Image: A protester holds a sign reading “Dreams Are Not Illegal”.]
We left while the rally was still ongoing; the protesters later marched to City Hall. A great turnout from a city that thrives thanks to the contribution of immigrants.
[Image: A protester holds a sign in several languages reading “‘We the People’ Are All Immigrants”.]
My full set of photos from the rally is available on Flickr. The photos are also on Wikimedia Commons, alongside images from other contributors. Please credit me (as Pax Ahimsa Gethen) if you use any of my photos, thanks.
