Video of Scott Wiener, the San Francisco state senator who is vying to replace Nancy Pelosi in Congress, being confronted at the Trans March on Friday is spreading rapidly online: As Wiener walked through Dolores Park for the kick-off event of Pride weekend, he was accosted by several people calling out his support for Israel.
“It sucks because you’ve been wonderful for trans people, and you’ve been terrible … on Gaza,” said Dimitry Yakoushkin, who filmed the encounter of Wiener walking through the park surrounded by screams of “Fuck you!” “We fucking hate you!” and many middle fingers.
Wiener started calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide earlier this year after pressure, but he has historically been supportive of Israel and is more critical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government than the country itself. Local pro-Palestine groups have long vocally opposed Wiener.
Wiener soon exited the park, followed by several people yelling after him. He issued a press release on Saturday morning saying he was “verbally and physically” harassed, “including physical contact,” and that he felt unsafe enough to leave.
“I left the park and, for the very first time, did not participate in the trans march.” He said he has “no objection” to disagreement, but that “harassment, including cornering me, touching me, or trying to physically bully me out of a public event … crosses a line.”
Connie Chan, Wiener’s congressional rival, appeared to march unmolested.
Yakoushkin, the man who filmed the encounter, is a local activist who often confronts officials in public on their stances. He said the protest was spontaneous. “It was not planned, I was walking home, and I saw him from a distance and I got my camera out to start filming.”
Video of the incident has been viewed millions of times online and was shared by national reporters, Democratic Party operatives, and high-profile right-wing accounts. A New York Post headline blared: “Humiliation for would-be Pelosi successor.”
Wiener is far from the only San Francisco politician run out of Trans March, going back at least a decade.
In 2016, Mayor Ed Lee was similarly booed. Standing on stage alongside David Chiu (then a State Assembly member, today the city attorney), then-State Senator Mark Leno and Wiener, Lee was forced to walk off before he had a chance to speak.
“Mayor Ed Lee and Scott Wiener arrived and they and other political leaders were promptly booed off the stage before being able to speak to the crowd,” Mission Local reported at the time. “I’m tired of people using our community as a prop. A political prop,” one attendee, transexual journalist Ashley Love, said then. “I’m tired of politicians coming here for five minutes and doing a sound bite and running off.”
The protests did not only target moderates. Video from the 2016 incident shows Leno, a gay man and a progressive politician, trying to calm the crowd after the jeers started. “Are we about love or crowd hate?” he asked. “Folks, I have to ask you, should I get off the stage?” The crowd claps and chants, and Leno puts his arm on Lee before walking off stage with the other politicos.
The protest at the time was, at least partly, over Lee and Wiener’s approach to homelessness; both had supported more aggressive enforcement against sidewalk tents. The crowd chanted “Housekeys not handcuffs!” as the officials left the park.
Mayor Daniel Lurie last year was also met with jeers and confronted by several people who chased him from the event.
“You are not wanted here. You are not wanted here,” one person wearing a spiky tiara with a trans flag in their hair told the mayor, according to a video from Yakoushkin, the same man who filmed Wiener’s booing this year.
Lurie was subsequently dogged by chants of “How dare you come here?” as he continued to walk through Dolores Park. The mayor and his security detail soon left.
Wiener’s Saturday morning press release said he’s attended the Trans March for 22 years “in solidarity with our trans siblings, who are facing existential threats from right wing extremists.”
But the taunts and physical threats were too much, he said.
“We’re living in a time when violence is all too often threatened or used against people in public life. In San Francisco, we’re better than that.”
Yakoushkin, for his part, said he had received calls from the New York Times and other outlets. National media and others online, he feared, would conflate the incident with the homophobic and antisemitic attacks Wiener, who has become a favorite target of the right wing, faces near daily.
“I think homophobia is disgusting and antisemitism is disgusting, but what happened in the park is not that,” he said. “It’s unfortunate this is being conflated and that homophobes and antisemitic folks are hopping on this as a bandwagon. We hate him for very different reasons, and we do not include those folks. They’re worse than Scott.”
Disappointed that you didn’t include in your article the difficult work for the trans community that Senator Wiener has done over the last 10+ years at great personal risk. It is a cause he believes in deeply and has gone to the mat for over and over. That is why this is different than the Ed Lee/Mayor Lurie harassments. In this case, harassers have created their own omnicause and I would argue have co-opted the trans pride parade as a way to show their anti-semitism/anti-zionism stand and harass those they choose to harass. (As an aside, I don’t believe Scott’s position is particularly different than Connie’s on Palestine and he is not taking AIPAC money (directly or indirectly) or support from people like Adam Schiff so the whole attack seems a bit misguided too .
“In this case, harassers have created their own omnicause and I would argue have co-opted the trans pride parade as a way to show their anti-semitism/anti-zionism stand and harass those they choose to harass.”
Well put, and that’s what annoyed me the most. He’s toed the progressive line despite being Jewish and a “liberal zionist” (yeah, it’s a thing). He called it genocide. He swore off AIPAC’s money and voted against aid, but is still chased away by an angry mob incapable of applying nuance.
Speaking as a long-time trans resident of San Francisco, while I am not a supporter of Scott Wiener or his views on Israel, I don’t think he should have been bullied out of the Trans March. He wasn’t trying to speak on the stage like the politicians in 2016 (which I witnessed personally), he was simply attending as a trans ally.
Yakoushkin should not be surprised if his actions are conflated with homophobia etc. Sure he may hate Wiener for different reasons but he really is just as loathsome as those he doesn’t want to be associated with. Yakoushkin obviously doesn’t believe in democracy or civil discourse, he believes in intimidation and bullying — he and people like him (on both the left and the right) are what are poisoning and polarizing are politics. It really should be possible to disagree with someone with hating them — but not for fanatics like Yakoushkin.
What a bunch of angry hateful people who would even want to help them after being treated like that…so immature. These “activists” just come off as angry annoying losers who can’t have any kind of civil discussion without yelling and grabbing their phones. Glad I avoided the entire area this weekend….
Yeah, not a good look, and I don’t mean Wiener but for this obnoxious, self-righteous mob.
So accepting and inclusive of them.
Your reporting is imbalanced. I’ve donated to the paper in the past but this falls short. As already said, you didn’t discuss or mention Scott’s legislation and how he is a champion of the Trans community. That would’ve provided critical context. Instead you do a good job outlining the views of the “activist” mob boss, and his defense of his violent and hateful actions.
I must be missing something, because I don’t see what the situation in Gaza has to do with trans issues.
Why not face the truth? He already knew he was not welcome in the park and that he would be thrown out. He decided to go because he wanted to become a victim and get media attention. He doesn’t want to engage in dialogue; he wants chaos. Why? Now he has donors lining up to support him. Good for him. May he get what he deserves, but it is just surprising that so many people can’t see what he is doing. Again, he knew this would happen all along; he was warned… but he needs more fools to support him.
Saw the footage of Weiner in Dolores Park as well as at the World Cup. Respectfully, and just learning the person’s politics, this form of behavior – chasing a public servant from a public park, shouting them down at a restaurant, may discourage anyone who wishes to serve, irrespective of their views. There are structured venues to speak one’s mind.
Wiener is a professional and handled himself as such. The screaming children have a LOT to learn about organizing, protest, and effective governance, not to mention civil discourse. Write the dude a letter if you want to engage on policy, and maybe try voting. This makes me sad on every level, and makes SF look completely idiotic on the national stage.
If they don’t 100% agree with all of our ideas, they must go!
“Put your money in land cause it’s the only thing they aren’t making more of.”
Will Rogers said that during the Depression.
Holds true today.
That’s why a smart lawyer guy like Wiener got into land use on the side making the most money which in SF is developers who get hold of ownership or control of as much land possible to develop for the maximum profit possible.
In order to move the current tenants out of their homes they raise the rents and harass and hire lawyers like Scott to get around the law and make new laws that make dispossessing current residents legal.
It’s the same basic situation in Gaza.
Only in Israel, developers (settlers) are driving the government to use tanks and jets and starvation to gain control of more property to settle and develop.
In the end it’s the same side Scott is on with both issues.
Difference is in San Francisco he can’t send in tanks to force the tenants to move.
Not yet, anyway.
Go Niners !!
h.
Yes! A religious war going back 1400 years is quite similar to the housing situation in SF.
Good. Politicians out of pride weekend. Especially genocide supporters.
That’s just hyperbolic nonsense.
Wow. So much to unpack with this, and I wince at this type of knee-jerk mob-justice, especially given Wiener’s great record on trans rights.
However, I also wince when Scott says that he felt “verbally and physically” harassed. I think the 70,000 dead Palestinians would consider if to be a luxury to be alive and verbally and physically harassed.
Disclosure: I’ve been against Scott’s housing policies from day 1, and I support Connie Chan.
Ah, the real reason: You’re a NIMBY. that tracks