So, as you've probably heard, here in San Francisco our Mayor died. I have a few thoughts about Ed Lee I'd like to share, especially because his obituaries are so poor.
First I'll say that there is a lot Lee did that I did not agree with. Those things are why I politely declined a seat with him at his table for the annual SF Pride (Alice B. Toklas) LGBTQ brunch two years ago. (I did sit at his table for the brunch this year.)
Lee was the son of a restaurant cook and grew up in poverty. Lee washed dishes at his father's side until his father died (young) of a heart attack. Lee witnesses his father being treated like a "coolie" and hated it.
Lee was eventually a Berkeley grad, and while his peers became corporate attorneys, Lee turned his sights on helping the poor Chinese communities of segregated (and very redlined) San Francisco.
Lee's crowning achievement in his activism, in my opinion, was organizing the great rent strike of Chinatown in the late 1970s. It centered on the housing project Ping Yuen ("Tranquil Gardens").
The residents of Pin Yuen routinely went without hot water for months, and the housing block was administered like a kennel. The families were powerless to get the city to act. Lee took up their cause, yet it all changed one night.
A 17-year-old girl who worked in a Chinatown sweatshop and lived in Ping Yuen was thrown from the building by her attempted rapist. She somehow survived, but he went and picked her up, carried her to the top, and threw her off again.
This project didn't have hallway lights. The elevators didn't work. This was how low-income Chinese in San Francisco were forced to live -- until that night in 1978. Lee galvanized the tenants around this horrific murder.
The rent strike he led brought the city's housing authority to its knees, forcing them to make improvements to the housing project. But that's not all of what's missing from Lee's obituaries today.
In summer of 2016, the year I didn't sit at Lee's table -- but I still marched with him for transgender equality -- Lee created the official position of Senior Advisor for Transgender Initiatives for the City of San Francisco. The first of its kind.
The thing that surprised me to learn, and that few knew about Lee unless you knew, was that he was a HUGE supporter of transgender rights. Like, it was his cause, and he put his money where his heart was, as it were.
Because of Lee, SF led the way in advancing the cause of transgender equality in the US. "San Francisco is the first city in the nation to have a position dedicated to advancing the rights of and creating policies for the transgender community." sfmayor.org/article/mayor-…
Lee marched loud and proud for trans equality and attended the trans march in the years before his death. I know, because I was there each time. He was proud to stand up for and advance the cause. So now you know.
