Updated June 27
An hour before San Francisco’s annual Trans March kicks off at 6 p.m. Friday, Bay Area Jewish groups will meet up at Dolores Park for a Pride Shabbat ritual and picnic. A short block away, anti-Zionist trans activists will converge at Mission High School to walk together as the Palestine Contingent in the march.
The contingent, whose poster features the slogan: “Palestine to Stonewall, liberation for all,” reminds participants to bring kaffiyehs, signs and Palestinian and trans flags.
“We say stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people,” its event announcement states. “All our struggles are connected — we march for trans liberation and all our collective liberation!”
For supporters of Israel who are transgender or allies of trans people, the direct or indirect anti-Israel messaging can feel exclusionary. As the Israel-Hamas war nears 21 months, the intensity of such messaging has only increased.
Beyond a single contingent in the parade, the Trans March organizers themselves have taken a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Trans March is not a parade, but an act of resistance. Furthermore, Trans March is an opportunity for us to draw the connections between the struggles of oppressed people beyond the imperial core,” its Facebook and Instagram accounts state. “Please show up on June 27th with your Palestine Flags, your union posters, plus more ready to build power against our common enemy!”
State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-S.F.), a gay Jew and progressive politician who has faced intense criticism and harassment from anti-Zionist activists because of his support for Israel’s right to exist, has attended the Trans March every year since it started in 2004 “in solidarity with the trans community. It’s something that’s very important to me,” he told J.
“Unfortunately, I have gotten harassed before. Last year some folks were calling me a Zionist pig and a genocider, and as far as I could tell, non-Jewish leaders were not being targeted,” Wiener continued. “I know that the harassment does not reflect the view of the vast majority of people at the march — everyone has a right to wear whatever they want, to bring the flags they want — but it’s important that it’s also a safe and welcoming space for the entire community, including Jews.”
Rabbi Denise Eger, interim executive director of A Wider Bridge, the national nonprofit advancing North American LGBTQ+ relationships with Israel, considers the Trans March’s support for Palestinian resistance “absurd” given the threat of violence, imprisonment and death that trans and all LGBTQ+ people face in Gaza and much of the Middle East.
“Our trans family members are under attack as it is in this country and in so many places around the world, including in Iran, including in Palestine,” Eger said. “To equate trans liberation with a resistance movement associated with the world’s greatest terrorist regime — Iran and its proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — is … ignorance at its highest level.”
The pre-march Shabbat gathering and picnic at Dolores Park is organized and attended by several groups including Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, Kehilla Community Synagogue, Or Shalom Jewish Community, Base Bay and the Bay Area chapter of Keshet, a national organization dedicated to full equality for LGBTQ+ Jews and families in Jewish life.
The march helps usher in a weekend of LGBTQ+ celebrations ahead of Sunday’s massive S.F. Pride Parade, which includes multiple Jewish contingents.
Rabbi Mychal Copeland of Sha’ar Zahav, San Francisco’s historic LGBTQ+ congregation, described the Trans March as an annual highlight for her congregation as she and other congregants cheer on marchers with banners, snacks and music when they pass the synagogue located at Dolores and 16th streets en route to Market Street. This year will be no different.
“The trans community is very diverse in experience and opinion. Especially in this frightening time, we support everyone’s right to safe and peaceful free speech,” Copeland said in an email to J. “In light of dehumanizing legislation from the current administration affecting transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people, the most important thing about Trans March this year is that we show our support and love for this community.”
Added Copeland, “Last year, there was also a large pro-Palestine contingent. We support the trans community in its full diversity, so we joyfully sang, held our supportive banners and gave out snacks, which the whole crowd appreciated.”