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<h1>Candidate tells Chinese supporters she still opposes transgender restroom policy, gives different message in English</h1>
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School board candidate Josephine Zhao has come under fire for
transphobic statements made to Chinese language newspapers in 2013.
(Courtesy photo)</div>
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By
<a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/author/j_rodriguez/" title="Posts by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez</a> on September 6, 2018 1:00 am</div>
<p><img class="gmail-alignnone gmail-size-full gmail-wp-image-10278" src="http://s79f01z693v3ecoes3yyjsg1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/SFExaminer-OnGuard-final-V1.jpg" alt="http://sfexaminer.com/category/the-city/sf-news-columns/on-guard/" width="609" height="145"></p>
<p>School board candidate Josephine Zhao is managing a neat trick:
telling English-language San Franciscans she supports the transgender
community, and telling the Chinese-language community she does not. </p>
<p>Now, however, On Guard has exclusively obtained text messages where
Zhao openly admits — in written Chinese — to giving the two communities
two different messages. </p>
<p>And, she also admits in those text messages, she does not support gender-neutral bathrooms. </p>
<p>That’s a tough position for a politician running to lead the San
Francisco Unified School District this November, which has policies in
place to require new buildings include single-stall bathrooms labeled
“all gender” and has a policy in place to encourage multi-stall
bathrooms for all genders. </p>
<p>Zhao, a local activist and first-time politician, has become a
lightning rod in the Board of Education race for her comments to the
Chinese-language press in 2013, where she said the transgender bathroom
bill would lead to “rape” in schools. </p>
<p>She has since apologized, profusely, repeatedly, and asked for time to learn and grow. </p>
<p>But her text-messaged statements to the Chinese community also
directly contradict her apologies in the English-language press, and to
prominent local politicians, some of whom have still maintained their
endorsements of her despite the heat, including state Sen. Scott Wiener
and Mayor London Breed. </p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_201481" style="width:710px" class="gmail-wp-caption gmail-alignright"><img src="http://s79f01z693v3ecoes3yyjsg1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ZhaoText-700x890.jpg" alt="" class="gmail-size-large gmail-wp-image-201481" width="700" height="890"><p class="gmail-wp-caption-text">A text message from Board of Education candidate Josephine Zhao to a 400-plus person WeChat group. Courtesy image</p></div>
<p>In the texts I obtained, sent to a 480-plus person group on the
platform WeChat (which is a favored social media platform in the local
Chinese community), Zhao wrote in Chinese “This time I learned some
tactics.” </p>
<p>“Moving forward, should coordinate internally and externally,” she
said, which my translators (I asked a few folks from various
professional backgrounds to help) said had some shades to it. Zhao was
apparently saying she must moderate what she communicates publicly
versus privately, among in-groups. </p>
<p>“I filled out the questionnaire casually in order to deal with
external folks,” she wrote, referring to supporting the transgender
bathroom bill. “My principles remain in my heart.” </p>
<p>“I only apologized for the misunderstanding of their legislation, and am not supporting gender-neutral bathrooms,” she wrote. </p>
<p>Zhao did not respond to my requests for comment. It should be noted
that Zhao has raised the most cash in this race so far, and with her
$78,000 war-chest and big name backers, she’s on the easy road to
victory. </p>
<p>This newest revelation also comes after an excellent <a href="https://missionlocal.org/2018/09/josephine-zhao-publicly-apologizes-for-past-transphobic-behavior-privately-school-board-candidate-boasts-she-is-now-even-more-well-known/">in-depth report by Mission Local’s Joe Eskenazi</a>
into Zhao’s history opposing transgender access to bathrooms in 2013,
and his own discovery of text messages wherein Zhao brags of her recent
notoriety over the transgender controversy. </p>
<p>After all the attacks over the transgender issue, she wrote to her WeChat group, “I am even more well-known.” </p>
<p>(It’s a fair warning to her detractors: She has a point. All this
controversy may actually be raising her name ID. If you want Zhao out of
the race, attacking her could have a “Trump effect,” of actually
boosting her candidacy.) </p>
<p>While Zhao has maintained she was “mistaken” about the transgender
bathroom bill and downplayed her opposition in an editorial she penned
for the San Francisco Examiner, Eskenazi’s deep dive into her history
shows quite the opposite is true: Zhao played a central role in opposing
the California gender-neutral bathroom bill, AB 1266, where she spoke
passionately about it alongside the Pacific Justice Institute, which the
Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an “anti-LGBT hate group.” </p>
<p>Eskenazi’s reporting also revealed Zhao called Supervisor Sandra Lee
Fewer a “race-traitor” and “Chinese trash” on the WeChat platform, which
Fewer told me she found “unprofessional” for someone seeking political
office.</p>
<p>“When referring to me as a “race traitor,” it is unfortunate that she
would stoop to using a term created by white supremacists and used by
the KKK,” Fewer told me Wednesday.</p>
<p>Much hay has been made about giving people time and space to change.
Moderate Democrats supporting Zhao have, in private, told me to ease up
on her as a first-time politician and immigrant who may need to adjust
to new ways in a new country. But you know what? Zhao has been here 30
years, she’s had plenty of time. </p>
<p>And though I only just revealed her latest texts to the Chinese
community, it should be noted that at least one of Breed’s
Chinese-language community staffers is in Zhao’s WeChat. </p>
<p>They can’t play ignorant when they’ve had the opportunity to see this all themselves. </p></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>