7 Climbers Rigged a Trans Pride Flag Over El Cap. Here’s What They Want You To Know.

On the morning of May 20, seven trans climbers and allies in Yosemite unfolded a 55’-by-35’ trans pride flag about one third of the way up El Capitan. For about two hours, the climbers opened the pink and blue flag for public display above Heart Ledges, about 1,000 feet above the ground. The flag billowed 15 to 20 feet away from the wall and did not block access to any routes.

“We want to make sure that trans people know they’re welcome outdoors,” said lead organizer SJ Joslin, a nonbinary climber, USA Climbing routesetter, and conservation biologist who works with bats in Yosemite. “Calling Congressmen and writing representatives feels like yelling into the void. We have this fucking microphone that is El Cap.”

The group of flag riggers also included the drag queen and environmental activist Pattie Gonia. Last summer, she successfully campaigned on social media to reverse the National Park Service (NPS) ban on uniformed employees participating in pride events.

“Let this flag fly higher than hate,” she stated in a press release. “We flew the trans pride flag in Yosemite to make a statement. Trans people are natural and trans people are loved.”

“Trans existence is not up for debate.”

This is the third flag-related protest in El Capitan in the past 12 months. On June 17, 2024, pro-Palestinian climbers unfurled a 25-foot “Stop the Genocide” banner on El Cap Tower to protest Israel’s U.S.-supported bombardment of civilians in Gaza. Then, on February 22, 2025, seven current and ex-NPS employees dropped an upside-down American flag between the top of El Cap’s Zodiac route and Horsetail Falls to protest the indiscriminate firing of 1,000 NPS employees and warn the public about threats to public lands.

In the past few years, and particularly in 2025, the U.S. government and dozens of state legislatures have moved to make it challenging for trans people to express their identity and enjoy equal rights in society. Currently, more than 1.6 million Americans, 0.6 percent of the total population, identify as trans.

Most visibly, five of President Trump’s January 2025 Executive Orders have targeted specific rights for trans people. The orders included directives to ban trans girls in middle and high school from playing on girls sports teams, transfer trans women in federal prison to men’s cell blocks, and stop providing gender-affirming healthcare to trans patients. The President has also commanded the U.S. Armed Forces to expel all trans service members, regardless of their rank or experience—a decision that survived a lengthy Supreme Court challenge and officially went into effect earlier this month.

While many executive actions have been challenged or blocked in court, U.S. state legislatures have continued to pass bills affecting trans people. So far, in 2025, more than 100 bills in 49 states have passed that restrict trans Americans’ healthcare options, legal rights, participation in sports, and visibility in public life, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker’s public database. Several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Human Rights Committee have expressed alarm at this trend and urged the U.S. government to roll back anti-trans laws.

The day after Joslin and their team rigged the pride flag, we sat down with them to discuss trans rights, El Cap, and their goals for the flag demonstration.

Climbing: Where did you first get the idea to fly a trans pride flag up on El Cap? 

SJ Joslin: You know how there have been monthly protests in the Park? I was driving to the second protest in the Park, and I was just thinking about everything that we’re going through. There was all this anti-trans rhetoric … all these ways that the government tries to make us seem not human. I was thinking about how El Cap has been a canvas for making statements throughout the course of people climbing it. So I was like, what can I do, as someone who has a particular set of skills, to make someone [feel] more included and more okay being themselves?

My niece had recently come out as trans and was asking me a bunch of questions, and I just really felt this sense of, I have this platform. Calling Congressmen and writing representatives feels like yelling into the void. We have this fucking microphone that is El Cap. So I went to the protest and chatted with a few people who also wall climb, and then we got Pattie involved because we wanted to fundraise for the flag. That was two months ago. It’s just been this really amazing ride of contacting people to help out and having them go above and beyond what we’d expect. Like, the flagmaker gave us this flag for cost.

Climbing: Your protest has hit national and international news outlets like NBC, USA Today, and The San Francisco Chronicle. What has the backlash been like so far?

Joslin: Just a normal amount of hate online, like, “Oh my god, get that vandalism off,” and “The NPS took it down,” which wasn’t true.

Climbing: Did you receive any response from the government?

Joslin: The DOI [Department of the Interior] responded online and issued orders for people in Yosemite to take down the flag, but we were already taking it down. We had it up around 9 a.m. and then we took it down around 11 a.m.

Climbing: Both of Pattie Gonia’s Instagram posts about yesterday’s demonstration include the mantra, “Trans is natural.” Your press release reinforces this with a BBC Earth report on the various species of fish that can switch their sexual organs from female to male, or vice versa, in response to different environmental factors. What would you say to people who might ask, “If trans is natural, why do trans people involve surgery as part of their transition?”

Joslin: You don’t have to have surgery to be trans. That’s just a way of letting your body validate what your internal brain chemistry is saying. That’s just like, “What shirt am I going to wear?” or “Do I want an ear piercing?” or “Do I want to dye my hair because I want to be a brunette or a blonde?” That is validating something in you that’s like, “I’m a brunette and I want to be a blonde because I feel like a blonde.” Just because you have surgery, doesn’t mean you’re trans. People have elective surgeries all the time.

You will be trans no matter how you look. Just because you are born female and you look female doesn’t mean that you’re not a man. Gender is a construct, and we do things every day in our lives to make ourselves be more who we are. We have a right over our bodies to do what we want. If we want to look or have a more masculine or feminine body because that helps us with dysphoria, that is our right, but that’s not making us trans. What’s making us trans is within ourselves. The surgeries affirm our transness, but they don’t make us trans.

Climbing: When people see images of the trans pride flag on El Capitan, what do you want them to take away?

Joslin: I just want them to know that being trans should be celebrated. Only you know your true identity, and whatever your identity is, it is beautiful and should be accepted. There shouldn’t be anyone telling you what right you have to your body or to your mind or to your expression of yourself. Trans existence is not up for debate. Just because people want to silence us does not mean we’re going to go away. We’ve existed since time immemorial and in all different cultures. In some cultures, transness is celebrated because it’s rare. It just so happens that Anglo-Saxon culture is that one that rose to dominate most of the West.

Climbing: As a nonbinary person, what is your biggest fear for yourself and for other trans people right now?

Joslin: I think the snowball will get bigger and people’s hate will fuel policy in ways that break up families and terrorize people. Just being able to be surveilled, as a trans or gay person now, is really upsetting. My biggest fear is our rights and our families being taken away. Another big concern for me is access to healthcare and gender-affirming healthcare, especially for trans youth. A lot of trans kids die by suicide because they’re not affirmed. That, to me, is quite huge.

Climbing: Some people have criticized flag protests on El Cap by saying, “El Cap shouldn’t be a community message board.” What would you say to those people?

Joslin: I don’t necessarily disagree with that. But there were no rules that said we couldn’t do what we did, so we did it because it was a way to get a message out. If there were rules saying that we couldn’t hang a flag from El Cap, then we wouldn’t have hung a flag from El Cap. We would have had to come up with more creative solutions to get a message of support out to the world. But we did it because that’s our form of recreation, and the point of the Park Service is to recreate. We want to make sure that trans people know they’re welcome outdoors.

Climbing: What is the best way that the climbing community can show up for trans climbers right now?

Joslin: The best thing that someone who wants to be an ally can do is not be silent, stand up for people, and educate people so we don’t have to. It’s a general theme in a lot of marginalized groups that there’s a general tax of educating people so they don’t objectify the group into being something that’s less than human. Going into how gender is a construct is not something that I want to spend time on because I’m maxed out just trying to take care of myself and my people.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

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