The San Francisco Public Library unveiled an exhibit this week featuring blood stained t-shirts that advocate “punching” feminists, along with several installations of deadly weapons covered in barbed wire and axes designed to kill feminist women. Materials include riot shields inscribed with the slogan “Die Cis Scum”. Free speech, especially controversial speech, is to be rigorously protected -- but displaying speech, symbols and actual weapons used to intimidate and kill women is not protected speech. This homophobic and misogynistic exhibit must not be welcome in our public libraries because it incites violence against women and lesbians.

The exhibit was launched mere days after the mass murder of women in Toronto by “incel” terrorist Alek Minassian and echoes his philosophy; and weeks after a trans identified male was found guilty of punching a feminist, echoing their justifications.



This exhibit is funded by SFPL and created by The Degenderettes, led by Scout Tran Caffee, founder of Trans Dykes: the anti-lesbian Antifa. The group specifically targets lesbians as “oppressors” of males because they exclude them from their dating pools. The males in the group identify as transgender / genderqueer and consider themselves to be "trans dykes" -- an appropriation of lesbian culture and slur reclamation.



Speech can and must be curbed if it is likely to incite violence. The Supreme Court considers few exceptions to the 1st Amendment "well-defined and narrowly limited", but includes defamation, incitement and true threats. The exhibit openly and unapologetically advocates violence against feminists, many of whom are lesbian and/or gender abolitionists, and as such should be removed.



We call on the San Francisco Public Library to do 3 things: 1) remove the exhibited weapons; 2) stop deleting dissenting comments on their Facebook Page, and 3) include a radical feminist speaker on their upcoming panel discussion on this issue.