After playing politics on federal land, a since-terminated alphabet activist park ranger found no social media sympathy while playing the victim.
“They have never been told no, so they believe they can get away with anything.”
In addition to lamenting layoffs and slashed funding since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House sought to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse, some federal employees have also taken umbrage with efforts to curb gender ideology. Now, after a Yosemite National Park “trans flag display” sought to promote the idea “trans is natural,” one of the park rangers involved found out that cause and effect is natural.
Emphasizing the ranger’s “preferred pronouns,” NBC News reported that Shannon “SJ” Joslin was fired on August 12, months after an activist display on the park’s El Capitan rock formation.
“‘I’m devastated,’ said Joslin, who is trans and uses they/them pronouns,” detailed the outlet. “We don’t take our positions in the park service to make money or to have any kind of huge career gains. We take it because we love the places that we work. I have a Ph.D. in bioinformatics, and I could be making a lot more money in Silicon Valley, which is only a few hours away, but I made career choices to position myself in Yosemite National Park, because this is the place that I love the most.”
NBC News indicated, “They said park leadership told them they ‘failed to demonstrate acceptable conduct’ in their role by participating in the trans flag display.”
As had been reported in May, another one of the activists who participated in the display attempted to argue, “Trans is natural. The Trump administration and transphobes would love to have you believe that being trans is unnatural.”
Amid a flurry of day one executive actions, the president prioritized defense of girls and women from the extremism of gender ideology and specifically stated, “This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts.”
Of course, while Joslin expressed intent to “fight this tooth and nail” and argued that others hadn’t been penalized in the past for flag displays, National Park Service spokesperson Rachel Pawlitz disclosed that others involved in this specific display were set to face consequences.
She told NBC News that her agency and the Justice Department “are pursuing administrative action against several Yosemite National Park employees and possible criminal charges against several park visitors who are alleged to have violated federal laws and regulations related to demonstrations.”
“We do not comment on the specifics of personnel actions or criminal investigations. However, we want to emphasize that we take the protection of the park’s resources and the experience of our visitors very seriously, and will not tolerate violations of laws and regulations that impact those resources and experiences,” she added as the agency is “pursuing administrative action against multiple National Park Service employees for failing to follow National Park Service regulations.”
Meanwhile, responses on social media were blunt in pushing the takeaways from the story, like, “Maybe don’t stage an activist demonstration in a national park by hanging an enormous, politically and ideologically divisive flag that obstructs the natural view for visitors. People go to Yosemite to get away from this kind of intrusive political signaling.”
The extraordinarily poor judgment that the original demonstration displayed has apparently been lost on this woman, as further evidenced by the way she is making a federal case out of it.
I just don’t get how people think that such actions have no consequences or should not.
— Sugaree ⚡️ (@sugaree71) August 19, 2025
Accountability is almost as beautiful as Mother Nature.
— Paul A. Szypula (@Bubblebathgirl) August 19, 2025
Exactly. Perhaps this is an excellent reminder to all activists, that breaking the law, has consequences.
— Perri (@Perrigoodsir) August 20, 2025
Too bad so sad . I suppose next time she has a job she supposedly cherishes, she’ll stop and consider the potential consequences of her actions. I doubt it but you just never know. ♀️
— Summer Sun (@WinterRainStorm) August 20, 2025
That’s was the right move. pic.twitter.com/VOaOHsKMua
— I Love America News (@ILA_NewsX) August 19, 2025
Now she can identify as unemployed
— TheRightGuy (@TheRightGuy101) August 19, 2025
unprecedented levels of entitlement
— stepfanie tyler (@wildbarestepf) August 19, 2025
They have never been told no so, they believe they can get away with anything.
— Jeremy Matthews (@Sarcasm_Sells) August 19, 2025
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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