Raquel Willis' resume is long: the first trans lead editor at Out magazine, a TIME 100 awardee, memoirist (The Risk It Takes To Bloom), and co-founder of the group Gender Liberation, whose direct actions at the US capitol calling for basic needs like trans healthcare reverberate far outside the DMV.

We discuss the limitations of mainstream visibility in saving trans lives, and her podcast series AFTERLIVES, whose first two seasons cover the lives and passings of Layleen Polanco and Marsha P. Johnson.

Raquel's site
https://www.raquelwillis.com/

AFTERLIVES podcast
https://www.afterlivespod.com/

Episode: Tourmaline on Marsha P. Johnson
https://www.patreon.com/posts/129316368

Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

SAD FRANCISCO hats and shirts have landed: https://sadfrancis.co/?post_type=product

The return of Susan Stryker! On this episode: The utopian potential of Trans SanFrisco of the 1990s, and why the new third edition of Transgender History may be her last time editing the classic tome.

Transgender History
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/susan-stryker/transgender-history-third-edition/9781541605886/

When Monsters Speak
https://www.dukeupress.edu/when-monsters-speak

Susan's upcoming book: Changing Gender
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250453921/changinggender/

Episode: Susan on the Compton's Cafeteria riot
https://www.patreon.com/posts/jail-at-comptons-79134233

Friends Stab and Trung both texted me when about a recent, very Sad Francisco-coded feature in Wired magazine. Here's a little response, inspired partially by an impromptu reading group a few friends did around the piece.

Mentioned:

Alexandr Wang

Barry's Bootcamp

Gawker.com

Melania's box office

Peter Thiel

Sam Altman

Tim Cook

TW for brief mention of Sam Altman sexually assaulting his sister, and the US war assault on Iran including the AI-assisted murder of kids there.

Zoë Bernard, Wired: Inside the Gay Tech Mafia

https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-gay-tech-mafia/

Ryan Grim, The Intercept: The Death of Peter Thiel's "Kept" Romantic Partner is Being Investigated as a Suicide

https://theintercept.com/2023/03/23/peter-thiel-jeff-thomas/

Owen Thomas, Valleywag: Peter Thiel is totally gay, people

Blog post that Peter Thiel didn't really love

https://www.gawkerarchives.com/335894/peter-thiel-is-totally-gay-people

Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press: documentary on Netflix following Peter Thiel's successful quest to bankrupt Gawker.com by funding a lawsuit related to a Hulk Hogan sex tape

https://www.netflix.com/title/80168227

Episode: Aesthetics of the New Rightwing Tech Intelligentsia with Jimmy Wu

https://www.patreon.com/posts/aesthetics-of-wu-148707467

First episode covering movies set in the Bay!

Starting with: 1971's DIRTY HARRY, in which Clint Eastwood plays a vigilante cop tracking down a gay Zodiac killer clone in a San Francisco overrun with hippie scum.

Jemma on her book "The Aesthetic Character of Blackness: Sounds Like Us"

https://www.patreon.com/posts/146458351

dee(dee) on the 1970s queer zine "Gay Sunshine"

https://www.patreon.com/posts/142696453

Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

Uncover the lore of four masked comrades who meet up regularly to offer aid to unhoused neighbors and teach self-defense.

We talk about the discourse around wearing frog costumes to ICE protests and giving public comment at San Jose City Hall dressed as Batman (that's the clip at the beginning of the episode).

BASH Linktree
https://linktr.ee/bayareasuperheroes

BASH IG
https://www.instagram.com/bayareasuperheroes

Kai Kai's Linktree
https://linktr.ee/kaikaibee

Absolute Batman
https://sfpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S93C7252448

Episode with Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry
https://youtu.be/d3SmXWz1L38

Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

Morgan Bassichis brought the 1977 queer cult fairy tale "The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions" back to print and stage a few years ago. Its messages about how to live under patriarchy feel extra prescient in 2026.

The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
By Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta
With essays by Morgan and Tourmaline
https://nightboat.org/book/the-faggots-their-friends-between-revolutions/

Morgan's website
https://www.morganbassichis.com/

Can I Be Frank? - Morgan's show, coming to New York this summer
https://www.canibefrank.nyc/

Morgan's Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/morgankindof/

Love in a F*cked-Up World Podcast (with Morgan and friend of the pod Dean Spade)
https://www.youtube.com/@Dean_Spade/podcasts

Episode: "Marsha P. Johnson Beyond Stonewall with Tourmaline"
https://www.patreon.com/posts/marsha-p-johnson-129316368

Mama Ganuush is back home in San Francisco after hosting the first JAHA Film Festival in December in Lisbon. The festival features all trans-focused films from the Global South, and begins screening online starting this Friday, Feb. 14.

JAHA Film Festival

https://www.jahafilmfestival.com/

Trans Liberation Film School

https://www.jahafilmfestival.com/transliberationfilmschool

Trung Nguyen teaches Asian American and ethnic studies at San Jose State. His presentation at the last American Studies Association conference covered how the interests of US empire, Airbnb.org, and refugee landlords market property ownership as a humanitarian act.

Trung's site
https://tpqn.org/

Iyko Day: The Yellow Plague and Romantic Anticapitalism (Monthly Review)
https://monthlyreview.org/articles/the-yellow-plague-and-romantic-anticapitalism/

Eric Tang: Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the New York City Hyperghetto
https://sfpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S93C3280280

BDS Movement's BDS Guide
https://bdsmovement.net/Guide-to-BDS-Boycott

Toshio's 2-minute explainer on Balaji Srinivasan's Network State
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8fRrpxF/

Related episodes:

Urban Alchemy with Brooke Lober and Norma Azucar
https://www.patreon.com/posts/urban-alchemys-f-109662919

Silicon Valley Imperialism with Erin McElroy
https://www.patreon.com/posts/silicon-valley-f-103189183