The Dee Snider SF Pride Incident

So here’s the story of the Dee Snider SF Pride incident. 
 
One night at a party Suzanne Ford, the Executive Director of SF Pride, and I were talking about what the message for Pride should be this year. With the relentless march of anti-transgender legislation and transphobia in the rise, how would Pride respond? As we kicked around ideas, Suzanne was very adamant the slogan should be “NO!”  Simply NO! It needed to be short and powerful and very clear. 
 
She took that idea to her PR team and together they came up with an brilliant concept: “No! We’re Not Gonna Take It!”, the Twisted Sister anthem would be an amazing rallying cry. Dee Snider is a famous liberal rock star, a champion of freedom and individuality, and is on record as an ally for LGBTQIA rights. He’d even told Trump not to use the song. Was it possible to get Dee to sign on to this? If so, it would generate a ton of free publicity to carry the message of fighting transphobia and anti-LGBTQIA hate. He could be our own Kid Rock! 
 
Suzanne called Snider’s people and Snider loved the idea. He wanted to perform the song on the Main Stage at Pride—which is a big deal to have a cis heterosexual perform at the nation’s premier Pride event. A very big honor, really. 
 
I was given a chance to design the t-shirts for the campaign. My first design, made with the assistance of AI, was too colorful and expensive to print. So we went with a very graphic two color design. Eventually the final design was a mix of mine and someone else’s (art direction by committee 🙄). 
 
Everything was set to announce. A press conference would be held, CNN would be there, the Rolling Stone, it was gonna be great. 
 
Then, just two days before the announcement, Dee tweeted about his opposition to gender affirming health care for trans children. 💔🙄🤬
 
Now, this has been called transphobic, and for a lot of us it is. Dee claims this is just a “moderate” position. He supports trans people, he just doesn’t agree with this. And of course it’s being used to score points against the “intolerant left”. 
 
The thing is, this isn’t something to be negotiated. This is doctors following decade-long well-established medical protocols  to best care for trans children and the state has no business policing what children and their parents know best. The trans community stands up for our most vulnerable members. Forcing trans kids to go through the wrong puberty is cruel and dangerous. End of story. Allies who don’t understand that are not being allies.
 
Short of a complete retraction and apology there was no way Pride could go forward with the campaign. Even then…this is San Francisco, it wasn’t gonna fly. 

A long conversation was held between Dee and SF Pride, an educational discussion of the issue from a trans perspective. It seemed as if Dee got the message, but his public response was disappointing.
 
It’s a real shame. Video of a giant crowd of queer people screaming “We’re Not Gonna Take It!” would have been amazing to see. 
 

This isn’t a fight about semantics or who is transphobic and who is not. This is a fight for people’s lives and happiness.

This would have been amazing.
One of the graphic designs for the t-shirt.
My dream design, incorporating some drag energy, was made with Midjourney AI and finished in Adobe Illustrator.

Seven Years

 

My birthday marked the 7th anniversary of the start of my transition.

All in all it’s been remarkably successful. It’s a journey you start with no idea how it will turn out, you just know with incredible certainty it’s a trip you have to make. Despite numerous blessings in my life there was a sadness at my core that wouldn’t go away, a lot of people saw it. Once I named it-I am transgender-this light went on that never burned away. Once I let Robyn speak she wouldn’t shut up until she was free to walk the earth.

They call us delusional to think we are truly of the other gender, and in a way, there is a kind of madness that takes hold that carries you through the rough times, blinds you to the stares, helps you march inexorably through the awkward stages and to the other side.

I’m so grateful I listened to that voice, and I’m so appreciative of the warm welcome I received.

Miss Kitty Litter in Venus Castina: The Art of Gender

At the same time I was publishing Homozone5 my friends and I published a zine about gender called Venus Castina. It was a place to showcase our art and poetry and write articles about our friends. It was a project of the House of Pancake: Kent Taylor, Micah, Randie Flame, Jade, Jude Hererra, Deanna Oliver and myself. We published it on a Macintosh Quadra and pasted up on gridboards on my kitchen table. It was a really great time.

I recently found the master pages of issue #2 and wanted to share articles about two of the towering figures in San Francisco queer culture, especially in the age of Klubstitute.

First, Miss Kitty Litter, the trailblazing gender-bending international performance artist.

Download PDF

What’s Up?

It’s been forever since I updated this site and no one is following it anyway, but I’m glad it’s here and I should make use of it. I love keeping track of my life. I guess these days a lot of us publicly diary our lives on social media. I do the Facebook and Instagram thing and keep track of my history that way. I guess a blog is for more long form work? Maybe? 

It’s the middle of 2022. I haven’t posted here since 2019. Gosh. A few things have happened in the intervening years…………..

Song of Myself

A friend of mine said, with love and humor, “Robyn is the most self-satisfied, self-celebrating transwoman I know. She’s always so frikking delighted with her transition….it’s inspiring.” Hell yes! Today with fresh new amazing red hair color that makes jade green pop and sing I’m definitely in a place of gratitude and delight. We all have so many diverse tools of self-expression, it’s just wonderful when they resonate for us. Everyone should have fun being themselves and sometimes that’s the hardest thing to reach. I feel like it’s my life’s work, making friends with myself, being good to myself, celebrating who I am.

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

—Walt Whitman