3 weeks ago
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YOSEMITE, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - After taking portion successful a show of solidarity for the transgender community, a ranger with the Yosemite National Park says they were fired due to the fact that of it.
"SJ" Joslin announced Monday that their First Amendment close to escaped code was violated aft being fired for hanging up the trans pridefulness emblem crossed Yosemite's El Capitan successful May.
Joslin says astatine the time, they were disconnected the timepiece and did not usage immoderate parkland resources to bent the flag, an enactment galore person done for years without repercussions. Joslin adds the crushed they were fixed for being fto spell was for "failing to show acceptable conduct" arsenic a wildlife biologist.
In a connection received from Yosemite National Park, officials stated:
“The National Park Service is pursuing administrative enactment against aggregate National Park Service employees for failing to travel National Park Service regulations."
Over the past 4 and a fractional years successful this position, Joslin says they person gone supra and beyond for the parkland and the section assemblage of Yosemite.
"SJ is simply a respected pillar wrong the Yosemite community, a tireless unpaid who consistently goes supra and beyond to guarantee the information of visitors successful 1 of the country’s astir revered nationalist parks," said Nat Geo environmentalist Pattie Gonia. "To portion SJ of their presumption is not lone an affront to their idiosyncratic state but an onslaught connected the precise values of service, dedication, and assemblage that SJ embodies. This is astir silencing those who reason injustice and we indispensable not fto that happen.”
Joslin believes their termination is simply a usurpation of their First Amendment and straight successful struggle with Trump’s enforcement bid connected "Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship" earlier this year.
"Our squad followed each written and unwritten rule, near nary trace, and honored Yosemite’s accepted traditions. Flying the trans emblem signified acceptance and information wrong the park. If this medication starts telling parkland rangers we are not allowed the law close of escaped code arsenic backstage civilians, what is to halt them from taking it from you next?" Joslin expressed.
