By Melanie Nathan
Here are some posts that have appeared on my social media, my Substack pages.
Posted June 27, 8.30 PM: Waiting for LGBTQI+ Leadership in San Francisco Bay Area to Condemn Antisemitism and the Jew-hate Attack on Sen. Weiner:
:Disclosure: I am a former VP of the San Francisco Pride Board and also honored as the 2014 Community Grand Marshall for San Francisco Pride, before I was elected to the Board. Note SF Pride and Trans March are completely separate organizations.
I am fuming with rage and my heart is shattered … I watched what happened to State Senator Scott Wiener yesterday at the Trans March in San Francisco. This is pure unadulterated hate and San Francisco cannot turn its back – call it for what it is JEWHATE! You cannot see it any other way.
This is not normal behavior.
A man who has devoted decades to advancing the rights of transgender people and the broader LGBTQI+ community – was forced to leave the Trans March – an event he has attended each year for over 20 years – for his own safety.
Every Trans leader and LGBTQI+ leader / organization needs to speak out now – today – against the horror of what occurred to Senator Wiener.
What I witnessed on video went beyond first amendment and political protest. It was a raw-ugly-vicious antisemitic assault with screams, hateful disgusting slurs, and overt expressions of hate. This is one of several attacks that have occurred against him – in public, some involving physical contact.
If any city knows where this can lead, it is the city of San Francisco. It must stop now.
With no strong leadership, this has been festering, and all in organizational roles are responsible. Where the hell have you all been: you are permitting this to happen on your watch. Shame!
This was directed at a Jewish gay leader who has spent more than two decades fighting for LGBTQI equality. I struggle to think of another California politician who has done more to advance transgender rights in state law while helping shape national support for the LGBTQI+ community.
San Francisco’s Trans and broader LGBTQI+ leadership must unequivocally condemn the violence, exclusion, harassment, and intimidation of Jews within our own community. If we cannot stand together against hatred directed at one minority, we fail each and every intersecting minority, and the values we claim to defend.
Many Jewish LGBTQI+ people no longer feel safe in spaces where we have stood together fighting for our rights, and that once felt like home. We are not safe.
As Executive Director of the African Human Rights Coalition, I also speak on behalf of our organization and the thousands of LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers we have served over the years.
We unequivocally condemn the hatred and exclusion being directed at LGBTQI+ Jews.
The hate we have fought against, that has caused so many of us to flee, cannot come home to be perpetrated by our own on our own. Who will be next?
We stand unconditionally in solidarity with Senator Scott Wiener and the Jewish community of the Bay Area, California.
Hatred has no place in our movement. If a single leader is silent, consider that to not be neutrality, but rather complicity, abandoning Jewish Queers.
At first I thought I would wait until Monday so as not to “spoil” The joy of SF Pride tomorrow and then I thought WTF….
Note: I will be posting more about responses as I see who make written published statements from LGBTQI+ leadership…
Link to the video I mention: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1769838074363211
Updated Monday 6/29/26 6 PM EST.
The more time that goes by, the less meaningful a statement from San Francisco Pride, Trans March and other leaders become. SF Pride is the fiscal sponsor of Trans march….
African Human Rights Coalition Bayard Rustin Coalition – BRC LGBTQ @followers Nas Mohamed Marcy Adelman Suzanne Ford Stuart Milk Roma Roma Honey Mahogany Michelle Meow Rabbi-CantorElana Rosen-Brown Rabbi Angela Buchdahl Imani Rupert-Gordon Governor Gavin Newsom Gary Virginia Tyler Harris Gregory Arthur Slepian Leslie Katz San Francisco Pride Nancy Pelosi Bay Area Reporter The National Center for LGBTQ Rights Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund TLC The Times of Israel Charlotte Clymer Marsha H. Levine
Sen. Scott Weiner, a Congressional candidate, California State Senator, and prominent gay Democrat who has spearheaded pro-transgender rights legislation, was surrounded and berated by protesters using vicious hateful tropes, and threatening his physical space, at San Francisco’s annual Trans March on Friday. Trans March is an organization whose fiscal sponsor is San Francisco Pride.
As we wait for Trans March, San Francisco Pride’s Board and Executive Director to condemn the Jew hate and antisemitism that occurred at the event, as well as others in the LGBTQI+ community to issue statements condemning the attack, one statement has been seen circulating on social media.
The screenshot below was posted by Cleve Jones, who some see as an icon of the LGBTQI+ activist community, being the founder of the AIDS quilt. However Cleve does not condemn the attack at all. He reclassifies the attack as an event that would not have happened, if only Scott had stayed home, one that Scott should not have attended.
However Scott has been attending the Trans March annually for 20 years.
I have seen Cleve Jones go low – but this low?
This is how what was once considered one of the most influential voices of San Francisco’s LGBTQ leadership, albeit of a recent bygone era, chooses to address the antisemitism in his community, and the vicious attack against a Jewish leader – Scott Weiner. This, in context, is beyond classic victim shaming-blaming as it invokes questions about avoidance of the issue of antisemitism, and calls into question what lies beneath it!
This is no different in principle from telling a woman she should not have walked down a certain street to avoid sexual assault- she must have wanted it – , (misogyny) or telling a Black person to avoid a neighborhood to escape racist violence- so he asked for it – (racism). The focus is wrongly placed on restricting the victim’s freedom – and the question is aways – what does it not say!
This avoidant behavior from Cleve Jones does not surprise me. Judging by the private messages I am receiving from members of San Francisco’s LGBTQI+ community, it also does not surprise others.
Some years back I experienced a phone call from Cleve Jones. He screamed at me for publishing a criticism relating to his response on an issue where I sought to defend the Trans Executive Director of San Francisco Pride, following a statement Cleve had made to Bay Area Reporter. The way he treated me was beyond mere rude, it was an entitled misogynistic vicious tirade. Kinda seems a little similar to the nature of the behavior of the dude in the Scott Weiner video. The statement fits. Hence no surprise.
However noting Cleve’s avoidance and deflection from reflecting on the actual Jew-hate is still mind boggling.
I guess avoidance begs the question – why! Or does it tell its own story.
To address the substance of his statement: – In the other instances Cleve mentions – trying to equate Scott’s experience to any politician being unwelcome- and where politicians might have been yelled at, it is notable that they were not politicians on their way to a trans SHABBAT SERVICE – you know something Jews attend, and they were not attacked with tropes and slurs based on their religion, faith, race , gender or personal identity.
Cleve has spent much of his time in activism invoking the legacy of the late Harvey Milk, an apparent friend of Cleve, as depicted in the film, MILK. I wonder how the Jewish Harvey would have felt about Cleve’s reaction to the attack on Scott. Somehow I think even if Harvey had not been Jewish his response would have been a lot more styled in true leadership – and hence, unlike this irresponsible Cleve-cruel response , appropriate and fitting for the moment.
Photo: By Melanie Nathan. (long ago) – The Curtain Pulled back on a Pride Message
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