For two hours last May, an enormous 55-foot-wide trans flag hung from the rock face of the El Capitan rock formation at California’s Yosemite National Park. The protest was initiated by several climbers, including a federal bat biologist who was later fired for taking part in the high-flying demonstration.

Now, the bat scientist is suing, saying their termination and an alleged criminal investigation following the protest infringed upon their First Amendment Rights.

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“I won’t sit back,” said Shannon “SJ” Joslin, also a former ranger at the national park.

“Constitutional rights are necessary and guaranteed for every person in the United States,” Joslin told SFGate. “This lawsuit is fighting for the rights of average people and is asserting that they don’t just exist for the individuals with the most power in this country.”

Prior to their firing, Joslin admitted to taking part in the May 20, 2025 display of the flag on the famous climbing wall, before voluntarily removing it.

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A termination letter received by the ranger in August accused Joslin of “failing to demonstrate acceptable conduct” in their capacity as a National Park Service employee, citing the demonstration as cause for their dismissal.

“I was really hurting because there were a lot of policies coming from the current administration that target trans people, and I’m nonbinary,” Joslin told the Associated Press at the time. Hanging the flag was a way to “tell myself… that we’re all safe in national parks,” Joslin said.

Following their firing, Joslin was informed they were under active criminal investigation for hanging the flag, they said, an unprecedented action for any similar display at the park.

Prior to the ranger’s firing, there is no record of disciplinary action or sanction for hanging a flag on El Capitan, let alone a termination or criminal investigation, said advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

A group of seven climbers, including two other park rangers who are on administrative leave pending an investigation, hung the flag, Joslin said. Among the group was environmentalist drag queen Pattie Gonia, who said the trans banner on the national park rockface represented the naturalness of trans identity.

Gonia described Joslin as “a respected pillar within the Yosemite community,” and “a tireless volunteer who consistently goes above and beyond.”  

Last February, another group of climbers hung an American flag upside down from El Capitan to signify an “emergency” at Yosemite, following a mass firing of National Park Service employees in the first weeks of the second Trump administration.

The lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C. accuses the National Park Service and other federal agencies of “illegal and unconstitutional” retaliation for Joslin’s First Amendment-protected speech.

“For decades, climbers at Yosemite National Park have expressed messages — political and non-political — from the iconic rock formation El Capitan,” the complaint reads.

“For this transgression, Dr. Joslin was summarily fired and then, in a significant escalation, criminally investigated. This vindictive campaign violated Dr. Joslin’s First Amendment and Privacy Act rights and continues to chill their expressive conduct and speech,” the suit says.

Along with the NPS, Joslin is suing the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and NPS acting director Jessica Bowron.

“If Dr. Joslin had hung a flag the administration liked, they would be working at Yosemite today,” Clayton Bailey, a partner at the Civil Service Law Center and a co-counsel on the case, said in a news release. “That reality is totally antithetical to the basic First Amendment freedoms promised to everyone.”

The Trump administration is in the second year of a crusade to erase trans identity from American society, from attacks on so-called “gender ideology,” to expulsion of trans troops from the American military, to requirements that passports and other federal identity documents be based solely on “biological sex.”

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