Are your officials using
hate speech
In
San Gabriel, CA?
This site follows city officials and prominent residents and publishes statements they make containing hate speech.
Hate speech is speech that targets an individual or group on the basis of protected characteristics. When it does not accompany a threat or crime, it is protected by the First Amendment. However, First Amendment rights do not guarantee freedom from accountability.
Want to report public hate speech in San Gabriel? Email the quote and source (e.g. city council meeting video link) to PublicHateSpeech@gmail.com
According to City HR, only the city council can hold accountable volunteer city commissioners who use hate speech in public statements on behalf of the city.
Only the city council and voters can hold accountable city councilmembers who use hate speech in public statements -- or, councilmembers who don’t hold commissioners accountable for hate speech.
San Gabriel Kiwanis Club
4/26/2024 Update
The city should watch closely for speech and hostile environment that may occur during or outside of formal San Gabriel Kiwanis Club meetings.
As of this week, San Gabriel City Commissioner Cheryl Cabot, whose transphobic statements are offered in transcript below, joins Commissioner George Carney in the San Gabriel Kiwanis Club, where Denise Menchaca (city councilmember to whom misogynistic statements were made) serves as well. Other people in the San Gabriel Kiwanis Club are involved in the incidents of misogynistic and transphobic hate speech in the city as well.
Mere days after the board voted to approve her formal membership (beyond her previous “friend” level) the board conducted another vote, appointing Cheryl Cabot as a formal board member. It isn’t clear if the Kiwanis board fully understands the numerous public statements containing hate speech that Commissioner Cabot made in the preceding weeks and months.
It is not clear whether a forced outing policy* is instituted by policy in the San Gabriel Kiwanis Club, and since such policies can be implemented informally, it should be investigated.
There may be a hostile environment within the club, as any environment where misogyny and transphobia are pervasive are potentially hostile environments.
All Kiwanis Clubs are distinct and disconnected from Kiwanis Cal-Nev-Ha and Kiwanis International, and the San Gabriel Club receives no oversight from any organization except its small club.
City of San Gabriel: Watch this club, and when they speak, listen for hate speech.
*Any forced outing policy for San Gabriel City youth would not be legal, as youth have privacy rights at the state level that supersede local opinions about parental interests in monitoring youth when they are not directly supervising them.
George Carney, Commissioner
March 19th City Council meeting, speaking as a civil services commissioner
As a lifelong San Gabriel resident, retired San Gabriel teacher, and civil service commissioner, this letter is to express my strong support of the proposal by Councilmember Menchaca to place the termination of the HEAR Commission on a future Council agenda. I believe that the shrill, almost hysterical reaction of the commissioners* to the Council’s decision to rethink and modify their sticker plan is evidence enough that the commission has lost its way and the commissioners have been overwhelmed by a sense of their own importance. The fact that they devoted much of their February 27th meeting to a shrill and vicious personal attack on Councilmember Menchaca, including slurs of her Catholic faith, indicates an obsession with their own importance and a complete lack of understanding of the role of a city commission and the individual commissioners. The fact that the commissioners took the Council’s direction to rethink their sticker plan as somehow an insult to them shows the absolute unwillingness of them to admit their overreach and the utter nastiness of their attacks on the Councilmembers for daring to question them, are all reasons to terminate the commission.
But much worse is their blatant attempt to involve minors, students, in their ideological bullying campaign. Bad enough that they seek to bully San Gabriel businesses and organizations with their sticker campaign, but much, much worse that they seek to have San Gabriel’s kids do their bullying. I noticed that there was not a mention of involving parents or seeking parental consent**, or even involving or seeking the opinions of teachers. As a retired teacher with more than three decades in middle and high school classrooms, this part of their proposal was the most shocking and disturbing. To sum up, the HEAR commissioners, by their exhibition of overweening arrogance, extraordinarily poor judgment, and total lack of understanding of the role of an advisory commission, have demonstrated precisely why the Council should act on Councilmember Menchaca’s recommendation.
*The HEAR Commission (which the city voted to shutter on April 16th, 2024) is a commission of five women.
**Suggests a forced outing policy at the city level for San Gabriel City youth, which beyond harming the youth would not be legal.
Cheryl Cabot, Commissioner
March 19th City Council meeting
"Mayor and Councilmembers, I've been a resident of San Gabriel for almost 25 years. Due to the attacks on me in the media, social media, emails, and now in comments here this evening, I want to clarify that in the February meeting of the Community Services Commission, months before the HEAR commission meeting, um, discussion transpired, I announced I will be retiring my position on the Commission. I want this to be known so those attacking me do not spin it to sound like I was forced to retire by the commission or the city. There are no term limits for serving on a commission. However, I felt that after six years, it was time for me to step aside and allow for new faces and ideas.
The attacks on me and Councilmember Menchaca were due to the fact that we exposed the bad behavior of the [Human Equity, Access, and Relations] HEAR Commission.
Never once in all the rants did they apologize or even recognize their attempts to exploit minors by having them speak in public at a city council meeting about being LGBTQ+. Even if these students had come out to their parents, it may not be known by their classmates. As a retired schoolteacher, I know the damage that one harsh word or whispered innuendo can do to a young student.
Currently, a legal battle on just such an issue is being played out by the State of California. The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta discusses the danger of imminent, irreparable harm by potentially forcibly outing LGBTQ+ students before they are ready*. It could cause a lifetime of harm. Let me ask the HEAR commissioners this. Would you parade your children in front of the public and the city council to discuss their sexual proclivities? I seriously doubt it. But if you have no shame -- but you have no shame in using other minors as your props.
The other issue that is very troublesome to me is the bullying by the HEAR commissioners. They have tried to bully Councilman [sic] Menchaca. She has stayed firm. They have tried to bully me. Unsuccessfully. All because Councilmember Menchaca did not support their sticker program, and me because I dared to expose their bad behavior regarding minors.
They have tried to bully commissioners from other commissions, and in fact the entire City of San Gabriel, to bend to their selfish demands by putting stickers on businesses and city offices. Can you imagine the bullying a business would get if they told these HEAR commissioners they didn't want to put one of the stickers on their door?
The HEAR Commission seems to have forgotten that they are just that, a commission, not a governing body of elected officials. Their purpose, as all commissions, is to serve as an advisory board. The HEAR Commission has lost track of their purpose as an advisory board. They have resorted to bullying, false accusations, and name-calling. Where is the equity in that?
By being divisive and controversial, they have opened the door to hate.
Because of the hubris of these commissioners and the misappropriation of their commission, and the disregard for the civil rights of minors, I encourage the City Council to dissolve the HEAR Commission. Thank you."
*This is misinformation, as it mischaracterizes forced outing. It is not forced outing for LGBTQ+ youth to exist and speak in public (which are their first amendment rights) but it is forced outing to suggest that the city should consult with parents when they are in public representing their personal identity. Forced outing not only harms youth, but it would not be legal.
Cheryl Cabot, Commissioner
March 12th op-ed published to ColoradoBoulevard.Net,* in the official capacity of a city commissioner (confirmed by City HR)
Letter to San Gabriel City Council Regarding HEAR Commission Meeting
“Mayor & Councilmembers,
I am a Commissioner for the City of San Gabriel. I have served on the Community Services Commission for the past 6 years.
This comment is in response to the Hear Commission meeting held on February 27, 2024.
I was appalled by the comments of the Commissioners at this meeting. They spent a good portion of the meeting lambasting Councilmember Denise Menchaca, because she dared to question the need for their LGBTQ sticker project. Councilmember Menchaca was called “a privileged straight gender person,” as if that is something derogatory.
My question is this, if businesses don’t want to put an LGBTQ sticker on the door of their business, will you bully them as well and call them derogatory names? Will you tell people to boycott their businesses? Now, you expanded your supposed scope to include all City buildings.
You, and I mean this collectively, seem to have forgotten your positions. You are volunteers, not elected officials. Your job is to make recommendations to the City Council. Not demand that the Council do your bidding. The only people who get to vote on all things concerning the City are the elected Councilmembers. They, and they alone, get to determine what issues are important to the City. I repeat, they are elected officials. You are volunteers and are expendable.
But by far the most shocking and disturbing statement came from Chairperson Goto. She asked the teen commissioner to reach out to students at Gabrielino High School that would be willing to talk to the City Council, in public, about being LGBTQ. This is disturbing on so many levels!** First, these are minors! You are trying to exploit them. Did you consider the emotional backlash this could create?
You exploited a minor by asking her to find LGBTQ students to speak in public in support of your sticker project. It was easy to see the student commissioner was very uncomfortable with this request. She is a minor. Secondly, what if these minors decide to speak in public at a City Council meeting about their gender proclivity, without parental consent?*** Did you consider the repercussions?
It’s doubtful that you, or your fellow commissioners thought of that. You were so busy patting yourselves on your collective backs about how you were solving a nonexistent problem for our City, you didn’t consider the consequences. San Gabriel is already an inclusive, welcoming City, and if not, slapping a sticker on the door of City buildings or businesses is not going to solve it.
I believe the HEAR Commissioners owe Councilmember Menchaca and their teen representative an apology.
If Councilmembers or the public would like to view the HEAR Commission meeting, it is on YouTube at Spectrum Channel 3. The lambasting of Councilmember Menchaca begins at the 1:12:33 point. The request to the minor commissioner was made at the 1:57:52 point.
*If you would like to contact the editors of ColoradoBoulevard.Net to ask whether they review their articles for hate speech, you can reach them at editorial@coloradoblvd.net.
**Suggests that minors do not have First Amendment rights to exist in public, or that they shouldn’t exist in public due to “proclivities.”
***Beyond making hate-based accusations of grooming (“exploiting”) youth, this statement suggests a forced outing policy at the city level for San Gabriel City youth, which beyond harming the youth would not be legal.
If you're upset, tell the San Gabriel City Council.