August is bat-catching season in Yosemite, and biologist and park ranger Shannon “SJ” Joslin was supposed to be wading through shallow streams right about now, putting up nets and capturing the tiny mammals to place radio trackers and check for illness. But this month Joslin, who is nonbinary, was fired by the National Park Service after helping to hang a prominent trans pride flag May 20 on the face of El Capitan.
Joslin’s supporters are rallying Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Exploration Center in Yosemite Valley to protest the termination and to support two other NPS employees who helped hang the flag and have reportedly been put on administrative leave. “Show up to support NPS employees terminated for practicing their free speech,” a flyer for the rally states.
“There’s a deep sadness in the community right now,” Joslin said. “Everyone has this glaze over their eyes, because we’re mourning. We’re such a tight-knit community that when you hurt one of us, you hurt all of us, especially when it’s so unfair.”
The Yosemite community has been reeling since Joslin’s firing, which came on the heels of Trump administration cuts to National Park Service funding and the chaotic firing and rehiring of some parks staffers nationwide.
The day after Joslin and a small group of climbers hung the flag from El Cap for approximately two hours, acting Superintendent Ray McPadden signed a rule banning banners, flags, or signs larger than 15 square feet in wilderness. The flag Joslin hung was 55 feet across. On that basis, and citing “failure to demonstrate acceptable conduct,” the NPS fired Joslin in August, announced administrative actions against two other rangers involved, and indicated there may even be legal proceedings against visitors who participated in the demonstration.
Given that the rule was not in place when Joslin and the rest of the group hung the flag, supporters are outraged.
“The majority of the Park Service and employees up there are devastated and very upset,” said Ken Yager, a historian of the area and founder of the Yosemite Climbing Museum in nearby Mariposa. “You have no idea when you’re going to get targeted next.”
Over the years, people have hung small flags — U.S. flags, the Jolly Roger, “silly crab flags” — on El Capitan, Yager said. But it wasn’t until last year that the world’s most famous tower of granite became a potent canvas for social and political expression, first with a “Stop the genocide” flag hung in June 2024 to protest the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, then an upside-down U.S. flag in February to protest the NPS budget cuts. None of the people who hung those flags faced consequences.
That upside-down flag garnered international attention and showed the power of El Capitan as a symbol. Joslin said they wanted to hang the trans pride flag not out of protest but in solidarity with the queer community and to show that nature is for everyone.
Supporters argue that Joslin’s firing tramples on their First Amendment rights. Joslin notes that they intentionally hung the flag on their day off in order to make clear that the statement was made not as a ranger but as a human being.
UC Berkeley Law School dean Erwin Chemerinsky, who specializes in First Amendment issues, said that distinction is at the heart of the issue of whether Joslin’s speech rights were violated. “The key question is whether this is speech on the job or off the job,” he said. If it was on the job, he explains, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that free speech protections don’t apply.
Whether the firing violated the First Amendment would need to be decided in court, Chemerinsky said, but either way, “I do think that it is outrageous to fire someone for the expression.”
Joslin said that they feel targeted and that the rules are being applied arbitrarily.
As a queer scientist working for the NPS, Joslin represents the intersection of three communities that have been targeted by the Trump administration. Sara Rosenberg, an avid climber who lives near Yosemite, said she is attending Sunday’s protest to support all three.
“A lot of our communities feel like they’re under attack right now,” she said. “They feel very vulnerable. They feel like they’re being suppressed. And when your communities are in distress, you show up for them so they’re not alone, and to really make it clear that that treatment is not OK.”
Joslin said that kind of support has kept them going the past week. They remember the first time they entered Yosemite — back in 2008 or 2009. It was night, and everything was cloaked in black. Despite growing up a few hours away, they had never seen photos of the park and didn’t understand the landscape. As they set up their tent, they had a vague sense that the stars were missing from the lower part of the sky. When they woke the next morning surrounded by towering monoliths and waterfalls, they were awestruck.
“I was just like, “Oh, my God, what is this?’” Joslin said. “I want everyone to be able to have that same feeling when they come to the park.”