Stockton, CA: Protesters Mobilize Against Anti-LGBTQ+ Speaker

Report on recent mobilization in Stockton, CA against a far-Right, anti-LGBTQ+ speaker. To view zine PDF mentioned in this report, go here.

On Wednesday March 19th 2025, students and community in Stockton, California mobilized against a transphobic speaking event hosted by the crypto-fascist campus group Turning Point USA (TPUSA).

The event, titled “The Truth About Transgenderism,” was hosted by the newly-formed University of the Pacific (UOP) TPUSA chapter and featured “Pastor” Junsun Yoo as its speaker. This was the first public event from UOP’s TPUSA chapter, which is closely tied to Pastor Yoo’s Christian student group, The Nest. This new local chapter is part of a wave of fascist activity sweeping the country, and they wasted no time hopping on the coattails of the far-Right’s current scapegoating campaign against transgender people.

The event was publicly announced on March 4th. In response, a petition demanding the school cancel the event was posted to Change.org and quickly gained over two thousand signatures. Soon after, an alternative event at UOP’s Center for Identity and Inclusion was organized. Scheduled at the same time as the TPUSA event, it’s purpose was to provide a safe space for queer and trans students who might feel endangered.

Others took a more proactive approach. After an anonymous flyer began circulating online with the headline “No Hate in Stockton, Give TPUSA the Boot,” calling for a noise demo outside the building where the transphobic presentation was being held, disparate autonomous groups independently organized a counter-protest in answer to this call.

On the evening of the TPUSA event, Stockton showed up against hate in a multi-pronged effort to oppose, disrupt, and derail the event from all sides. Outside the auditorium, a crowd of over 150 people gathered with signs, banners, trans pride flags, noisemakers, and a cardboard caricature of Charlie Kirk’s face. Signs and banners read such things as “Fuck your hate,” “Trans rights are human rights,” and “Respect my trans homies or I’m gonna identify as a fucking problem.”

Protesters chanted “No Trump, no KKK, no TPUSA!,” read off a list of egregious quotes by TPUSA leadership, heckled a TPUSA streamer, and clashed with the police, who showed up with reinforcements and attempted to keep protestors in a fenced off “protest zone.” Police briefly tried – and failed – to arrest a protestor and to seize a megaphone, claiming that amplified sound was prohibited. However when pressed, they were unable to cite the code supporting that claim, and still tried to enforce it – a tactic we are all too familiar with.

Download Zine PDF Here

After some examples of overt defiance and some negotiation amongst themselves, the initially hesitant crowd soon discovered that the police could do little to keep them cornered off, and the protest moved in unison to the grass in front of the auditorium entrance. At several points later in the night, protestors spotted police in riot gear and spread the word amongst the crowd to keep everyone safe and informed. People handed out masks, zines, and cookies, and wrote the legal number on each others’ arms. Street medics stood by in case of an emergency, providing reassurance, support, and escorts for those who required it. Beautifully, organically, a fragmented crowd became a cohesive force.

Meanwhile in the auditorium, another group of protesters staged a sit-in and disrupted the event from the inside. People heckled and argued with the speaker. Many wore masks with pride flags on them, refusing to be pushed back into the closet. At one point, the power was abruptly shut off during the Q&A, cutting off Pastor Yoo’s mic for a full 8 minutes as he fumbled about with sloppy arguments on gender-affirming care. According to one source, the sit-in accounted for over half of the event’s audience. Many more who planned to take part in it were turned away at the door, some for not having ID, some for “not looking the part,” which we can only assume to mean looking too queer or too “leftist.”

After the lengthy (and no doubt boring) speech came to an end, attendees began to trickle out of the building. Protestors moved closer and began chanting “Hate has no home!,” booing as attendees walked by. Some opted to leave via a side door to avoid the walk of shame past the angry crowd. Many sit-in participants came out and joined the protest, met with cheers and hugs.

Despite a shaky beginning, by the end of night the excitement and spirit of solidarity in the air was palpable. New connections were forged, rides home were offered, and we left feeling incredibly grateful for and humbled by the commitment and bravery of so many friends and total strangers, all coming together towards a common goal – to smash the seeds of reactionary hate before they can take root in our city. We must make every effort to maintain this energy for it to lead to many more blooms of rebellion against the rising tide of fascism.

All By Design

It’s worth mentioning that a majority Asian-American Christian group was TPUSA’s vehicle into UOP. Two Asian-American women students and an Asian-American speaker were chosen to be the public face of the event. According to TPUSA’s website, two young white men lead the UOP chapter. TPUSA frequently places its non-white membership front and center to counter (valid) accusations of their racism.

Events like this one that provide a platform for hateful rhetoric, often attracting the most dangerous factions of the far-Right: Proud Boys, Patriot Front, and the Traditionalist Workers Party, open Neo-Nazis. While we can breathe a sigh of relief that none of these groups were present in force, one attendee threw a roman salute/sieg-heil to the counter-protest on his way out. This is just a taste of the what we can expect on campus and in our hometowns if groups like TPUSA set up shop.

TPUSA doesn’t just attract these types – it creates them, too. The group’s own fascist, white nationalist agenda is thinly-veiled but well documented. It’s no mistake that they’re less public about their more objectionable views. Instead they strategically choose hot button topics that have mass appeal amongst conservative Americans, (like trans athletes and gender-affirming care for minors) to reel people in and push them further to the Right. This strategy has been extremely successful, which is why TPUSA is the first stop for many college students on the pipeline to far-Right extremism.

The Coming Conflict

It is unlikely that this will be the last of these events we will see locally, and when they come we must be ready. Our trans siblings, our immigrant siblings, and our siblings of color are under attack by the state. Whether or not you identify with any of these groups, even if you feel you are in no danger under this regime, your safety is temporary.

Authoritarianism dominates. That is its function. When we say “An Attack on One is an Attack on All,” we are not simply being poetic. This is demonstrable. We will either find our common interests and defend one another from this onslaught, or we will perish. This moment will not simply “pass.” If it goes unopposed, it will devour everything. It will not end with a Democrat in office or the return of DEI. The US Empire will continue to intensify the level of oppression here at home the same as it does abroad. We’re putting out the call – Strengthen your communities, build defense networks, organize mutual aid. Study the histories of authoritarian seizure of power and the paths they took to get there: know what we’re up against. Study resistance movements, both historical and current, successes and failures: know how to fight back. There is no time for hesitation.  Now is the time to act.

See you on the barricades…

– Some Anarchists

“For every person that takes one step towards Freedom, there is another who finds the road to Liberation a little easier.”

photo via Screenshot from ABC 10