A recent San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting included a lively community comment advocating for trans rights and pointing out an omission from this year’s Pride Raising Ceremony.
San Francisco is largely considered the gay mecca of the world. The seven-by-seven has a lengthy Rolodex of being either “firsts” or pioneers in touchstone moments of LGBTQIA+ history. In 2021, then-Mayor Breed declared the month of August as Transgender History Month in San Francisco, stamping SF as the first major city to do so in America; that same month, the City legally recognized a Transgender District — the first in the entire world.
Symbols matter. Supporting the trans community matters. Our mayor and our government has abandoned them. For the first time, the trans flag was excluded from the pride flag raising ceremony at city hall, and I had something to say to the Board of Supervisors about it. pic.twitter.com/XVMpgyPTmH
— Dimitry Yakoushkin (@decadimitry) June 25, 2025
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
A lot has happened in those subsequent four years, to put it mildly. And a wave of conservatism, cheekily veiled under the guise of ballot-friendly “commonsense moderatism,” has washed over San Francisco. Even the world’s queer capital appears is dimming.
The evidence of that hazing is evident through a kaleidoscope of happenings. But perhaps none have been as evident, nor as slippery, as the City’s recent decision to remove the officially recognized transgender flag from this year’s official Pride flag raising ceremony.
“Symbols matter. Supporting the trans community matters,” reads a post on X by longtime San Franciscan Dimitry Yakoushkin. Attached to the post is a recorded two-minute public comment — number 26 — during a SF Board of Supervisors meeting held Tuesday, June 24th.
In his 120-minute comment, which emphasized the board’s inaction around holding now-Mayor Daniel Lauri accountable for his recent controversial actions, Yakouskin revealed a startling fact: San Francisco didn’t fly the official transgender flag at this year’s official Pride Rising Ceremony.
Yakoushkin added it’s the first time he’s noted the flag’s absence since living in San Francisco; for context, the official transgender flag was created and designed by Monica Helms and was first flown at Pride parade in Phoenix in 2000; it would take San Francisco over a decade to officially raise the flag in 2012.
Yakoushkin, who’s been a longtime ally for the trans community and outspoken advocate for access to gender-affirming care, laid bare how “[San Francisco’s] mayor and our government has abandoned [trans folk].”
Yakoushkin lamented how certain San Francisco healthcare clinics and regional healthcare centers have preemptively stopped offering gender-affirming care practices to any individual under the age of nineteen amid new federal government watchdog practices; the FBI launched a public tip line earlier this month specifically targeting trans youth, encouraging those with information on hospitals and clinics performing gender-affirming surgeries on children to report them under the thinely, vaguely defined veneer of alleged genital mutilation; dehumanizing political measures like these are historically common in fascistic movements meant to scapegoat a comparatively small portion of the general population — an estimated 6/10ths of a percent of all Americans identify as trangender; around 3% of all Americans are currently undocumented — and vilify them, distracting from the wrongdoings done by the ruling or dominant class.
As of publishing, the transgender flag is not being flown at San Francisco City Hall. Yakoushkin and others (us included) hope that changes before this weekend’s official marches and festivities, if for no other reason than to recognize that trans rights and, indeed, human rights — in the metropolis responsible for birthing the movement behind them, no less.
Feature image: Courtesy of Flickr via Quinn Dombrowski
