Federal prosecutors are considering whether Yosemite National Park employees and others who draped a transgender pride flag from the famous El Capitan cliff in May could face criminal charges, the National Park Service said this week.
A former Yosemite National Park biologist involved in hanging the flag at the California park was fired last week after an NPS investigation.
Shannon Joslin, who goes by SJ and uses they/them pronouns, ran the park’s bat program when they participated on May 20 in hanging the pink and blue trans flag from the granite rock formation to protest the Trump administration’s moves to scrub references to transgender people from National Park Service websites and properties.
Rachel Pawlitz, a spokesperson for the National Park Service, said in a statement late Monday that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California is “evaluating possible criminal charges based on a National Park Service investigation.”
