From afar, San Francisco may appear immune to the anti-LGBTQIA, anti-Jewish, Anti-Asian hate and anti-woman politics of the far right. After all, the successor to Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi will be either a gay Jewish man (Scott Weiner) or a woman who immigrated here from China as a child (Connie Chan). The leading candidates for supervisor in District 8 of San Francisco include a formerly homeless gay aide to Nancy Pelosi (Gary McCoy), a gay Jewish café-owner (Manny Yekutiel), and a drag queen Asian American lawyer (Michael Nguyen, aka Juicy Liu) who has “ICE OUT” on his campaign poster.
In both Congress and San Francisco City Hall, the winners in the general election in November will not be heterosexual white men. Unsurprisingly, the far-right and the “manosphere” are likely to mercilessly mock and harass whoever wins. The targeting of immigrants and women and LGBTQI for cyber-bullying is old news, as is the prevalence of sexual violence in government.
Unfortunately, some nominally liberal San Francisco political leaders, including Weiner, are using AI to confuse voters and mock Chan, while others including the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee are shrugging off allegations of sexual abuse by one of the candidates (Yekutiel).
Resentment and hatred of queers led to the assassination of both Sup. Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1978. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi endured years of death threats and vicious personal attacks from Donald Trump that contributed to the 2022 hammer attack on her husband that was followed by homophobic conspiracy theories and jokes. Yekutiel’s café on Valencia Street was broken into and vandalized with death threats in 2025.
Most recently, Chan was victimized by an AI robot that mocked her accent and questioned her citizenship. Though that sounds like classic MAGA race baiting and xenophobia, it was not outside agitators; it was the creation of Weiner’s campaign.
Weiner barely apologized by saying that it “missed the mark.” In fact, the use of AI by the campaign may reflect that Weiner’s wealthy supporters are happy to use their robots for the “gee whiz” factor and simply because they can.
The New York Times suggested that the deep fake was being gamed by supporters of Connie Chan thereby blaming the victims (women and Asian Americans). To my mind, this appears to be an attempt to test the willingness of voters to ignore or simply chuckle about the AI threat to the climate and democracy. For those of us who have been bullied or worse, it is an explicit threat.
Yekutiel, a co-founder with Mayor Lurie of the Civic Joy Fund, was accused of sexually assaulting a member of the Milk Club. The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee delayed their investigation into the allegation that they then found “unsubstantiated” just before voting to endorse Yekutiel. Yekutiel has categorically denied misdeeds but has not agreed to an independent investigation.
There are those who dismiss the allegation because the events took place more than five years ago and find it suspicious that he waited until the campaign and because it took place at a party. Though neither Yekutiel nor the man he allegedly assaulted are women, the “why did you wait so long to report?” and “what do you expect at a party?” questions are used against primarily against women. Though it is wearying to answer those questions, I have some insight from my own experience.
After dinner in a Las Vegas hotel meeting of union nurses ten years ago, a group of young white men who appeared drunk approached me. I was in drag with a t-shirt that featured the women’s symbol with a fist inside. On of them loudly said they were going to hug me and immediately put me in a head lock partially obstructing my trachea. I froze as I feared passing out while dozens of people looked on. Because both the assailants and the victim (me) are white, the bystanders may have been thinking “oh that’s just boys being boys.” I didn’t call the police or tell hotel security because I wasn’t (physically) hurt and because I never wanted to see them again. If I happened to find out they were running for office, I would certainly want people to know what happened.
As a Jewish grandchild of immigrants, I feel kinship with Chan as well as Weiner and Yekutiel. My great-grandfather emigrated from Europe in 1881 just as Jews were being “ethnically cleansed” into the “Pale of Settlement” in Russia and Ukraine while the United States passed the explicitly racist Chinese Exclusion Act.
One of my grandmothers was an undocumented immigrant, and if it wasn’t for birthright citizenship my father could have been deported during the Shoah (aka Holocaust). A brave San Francisco-born Chinese American, Wong Kim Ark, took his right to be a citizen to the Supreme Court. The fact that the Supreme Court barely defended birthright citizenship today while immigrants are being held in concentration camps throughout California means we need San Francisco represented by someone who understands and cares about all of us and particularly the most vulnerable.
I believe that many San Franciscans are rightly afraid of ICE and the abduction of their neighbors and families. Artificial Intelligence and data centers are threatening the climate, democracy and even reality. From Jeffrey Epstein to Eric Swalwell, sexual violence is endemic among political and well-connected men.
It is important to remember that we are not deep fakes; we are all human beings. If we engage in violence, it may be understandable or considered justifiable but those that will suffer the most are those most vulnerable. If we succumb to the cynical view of politicians that “they all suck” and fail to support voting as one of the key non-violent methods to change things, then the oligarchic men win.
I encourage people to go to their union or community organization and talk to real people, not bots.
