Jenni Olson
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jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Jenni Olson
@jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
16K followers 710 following 390 posts
I'm @JenniOlsonSF everywhere | Senior Director, Social Media Safety at @glaad.bsky.social. LGBTQ film expert & online pioneer. Maker of films. Proprietor: Butch.org
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jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
"I can’t stand the idea of working for a company that doesn’t live up to having basic values around L.G.B.T.Q. rights and equality.

What should I do?"
How to Speak Up I work for a social media company. Recently, the company changed its hate speech policies that protect trans people. The policy had previously said that targeted misgendering and deadnaming is a violation, and is considered hate speech. They completely removed that part of the policy. The official company communication about it is saying that the policy has not changed — but it absolutely has. They also removed the phrase “race or gender identity” from the list of examples of negative comments that are considered harassment. Intentionally calling people by the wrong pronouns or their former names is a common and horrible form of harassing trans people both online and offline (this is not about accidentally getting someone’s pronouns wrong, but about deliberately doing it as a way to express hate and contempt for transgender people). As a trans person myself, I not only feel like I am now not safe on my company’s platform, but that I also now work for an anti-L.G.B.T.Q. company. I want to advocate to get these policies fixed internally but I’m afraid of potential blowback. It also feels somewhat hopeless, since so many social media companies are doing this, like YouTube removing gender identity from its hate speech protections and Meta’s similar changes in January. If I don’t stand up and say something, it would feel terrible. I can’t stand the idea of working for a company that doesn’t live up to having basic values around L.G.B.T.Q. rights and equality. What should I do? — D.B., Oakland, Calif.
September 8, 2025 at 9:56 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Happy International Butch Appreciation Day! Appreciate all the butches in your life every day. "I wanted to thank you. If it wasn't for you, I'd never have known I had a right to be me." — Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues (art by @miriamkleinstahl.bsky.social)
www.facebook.com/butchappday/
"I wanted to thank you. If it wasn't for you, I'd never have known I had a right to be me." — Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues (art by Miriam Klein Stahl)
August 18, 2025 at 3:04 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Check out this must-read piece from @mmasnick.bsky.social at TechDirt on how LinkedIn is following in the anti-trans footsteps of Meta, YouTube, and others: "LinkedIn Joins The Parade Of Cowards: Quietly Strips Anti-Trans Protections To Appease MAGA Mob" www.techdirt.com/2025/08/01/l...
The move is particularly cowardly because LinkedIn made the change with zero public announcement or explanation. When pressed by a reporter at The Advocate, the company offered the classic corporate non-answer: “We regularly update our policies” and insisted that “personal attacks or intimidation toward anyone based on their identity, including misgendering, violates our harassment policy.” But here’s the thing: if your policies haven’t actually changed, why remove the explicit protections? Why make it harder for users and moderators to understand what’s prohibited? The answer is as obvious as it is pathetic: LinkedIn is preemptively capitulating to political pressure in this era of MAGA culture war. This follows the now-familiar playbook we’ve seen from Meta, YouTube, and others. Meta rewrote its policies in January to allow content calling LGBTQ+ people “mentally ill” and portraying trans identities as “abnormal.” YouTube quietly scrubbed “gender identity” from its hate speech policies, then had the audacity to call it “regular copy edits.” Now LinkedIn is doing the same cowardly dance.
August 6, 2025 at 4:37 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
LA Friends: I'm presenting a screening of The Royal Road on Mon Aug 4th at 7:30pm at the queer Black Cat Cinema series at Look Cinemas in Glendale. Click to get your tix. Fun fact: This production still is my shot of Barbara Stanwyck's house in Double Indemnity. www.lookcinemas.com/movie/1001/6...
Color image of a 1920s Spanish Colonial Revival house in Los Angeles (Barbara Stanwyck's house in Double Indemnity).
July 19, 2025 at 8:22 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Thrilled to be featured in the new issue of Film Quarterly talking about the 10th anniversary of The Royal Road (2015)! With my continuing mission as a filmmaker: “I’m engaged in a completely impossible and yet partially successful effort to stop time.” online.ucpress.edu/fq/article/7...
Image of Oakland Bay Bridge and text: Looking back at The Royal Road, I hope that it continues to be a rich experience for audiences and viewers, and that it continues to reveal new meanings and new understandings of what it is and what it’s doing as a work. My continuing mission as a filmmaker is reflected in my favorite line from The Royal Road: “I’m engaged in a completely impossible and yet partially successful effort to stop time.”
July 5, 2025 at 3:00 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Not me being picked by the @theguardian.com as having made the third best LGBTQ film of the 21st century! Thx @ryangilbey.bsky.social! The Royal Road is available to watch for free via @kanopy.com, Tubi, or the Wolfe Video Movies channel on YouTube. Happy Pride! www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ju...
3. The Royal Road (2015) Jenni Olson proves herself the unassuming heir to Chantal Akerman in this perfectly calibrated essay film that interweaves California’s bloody history with Olson’s (semi-fictionalised) romantic imbroglios and the tangled roots of her cinematic obsessions – all expressed in a sanguine narration over atmospheric street-and-landscape shots. In a line that captures the essence of queer cinephilia, Olson says: “Experiencing myself as a fictional character has been a mode of survival for me.”
June 12, 2025 at 10:34 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Wow, this is wild. This is the building at 6th & Market where the old PlanetOut.com office was — like, um, 25 years ago!? do.ithistory.org/db/companies...
May 20, 2025 at 5:40 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Thank you @maya4rights.bsky.social & @civilrightsorg.bsky.social for today's kick-ass open letter to Meta demanding that Mark Zuckerberg must "take accountability for your role in sowing the seeds of hate, falsehoods, and lies." civilrights.org/resource/lea...
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg, On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 240 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States, and the more than 16,000 individuals across the United States who have signed onto our petition, I urge you to restore Meta’s full content moderation efforts and fact checking to stop the spread of dangerous lies and falsehoods on your platform. Unfortunately, we’ve witnessed your and Meta’s retreat from the commitments you made to protect your three billion-plus users and their well-being, with April 7 marking the official end of professional fact checking across Meta platforms in the United States. Your decision to cut content moderation and fact checking across Meta’s platforms in the U.S. sends a clear message to malicious actors that they can run rampant, spreading dangerous lies and falsehoods on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. You are exposing vulnerable communities—both online and offline—to hate speech, dangerous rhetoric, threats of and real violence, and harmful comments about immigrants, trans youth, and people seeking abortions that will long outlive Meta. That will be your legacy.
May 9, 2025 at 12:10 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
April 19, 2025 at 5:13 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Oh wow! I know it's not #FollowFriday yet, but... Look who's here! @hillmurray.bsky.social Welcome to Bluesky, Murray Hill! (Aka: Fred Rococo on HBO's Somebody Somewhere).
Murray Hill Bluesky header with headshot image of Murray Hill
April 15, 2025 at 9:14 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
🏳️‍🌈 🫵 Click to register: The @glaad.bsky.social Media Institute is hosting this virtual media advocacy training for local LGBTQ organization staff, community leaders, and individuals (Telling Your Story: Messaging & Media Tools For Today’s Activist — April 23, 12 PM EST). act.glaad.org/page/78001/s...
Telling Your Story: Messaging & Media Tools For Today’s Activist Virtual, April 23, 12 PM EST to 1:30 PM EST Welcome! On behalf of GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, and the GLAAD Media Institute, we’re excited to host a media advocacy training and panel for local organization staff, community leaders, and individuals. Training details will be provided upon registration confirmation.
April 9, 2025 at 10:37 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
🤠 SF Bay Area folks: My film The Royal Road is showing Tues, April 1 @ 6:30pm at the Roxie AND Wed, April 2 @ 7pm at @bampfa.bsky.social. And The Joy of Life (2005) screens Tues, April 8 @ 6:30pm at the Roxie. More details here via @sfchronicle.com! datebook.sfchronicle.com/datebook-pic...
Woman with short hair looks off to the left, holding a 35mm film trailer against a red backdrop.
March 25, 2025 at 4:11 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Great question. [grabs copy from shelf]. Sadly no. But does have interview with David Buckley and with Don Scotti. And a video essay about the film by the late great Lee Gambin. Plus better box art. :-)
Original film poster art
March 4, 2025 at 4:32 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
The NYT asking with a straight face: “Why, after more than a decade of TV representation would transgender Americans be losing ground?”

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/a...
March 2, 2025 at 6:41 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Two screenings left in my Masc II series at @bampfa.bsky.social! These are extremely rare opportunities to see these films. Come out Thursday at 7pm for Something Special, aka Willy/Milly (I'm showing my 35mm print!) And Sunday at 7pm we're showing Muchachas de uniforme. bampfa.org/program/masc...
Willy/Milly movie poster and black and white photo of Pamela Adlon Muchachas de uniforme movie poster with dramatic scary illustration of a nun in a church
February 20, 2025 at 5:17 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
bampfa.org/program/masc...
Summer Vacation 1999 Shusuke Kaneko Japan, 1988 35mm Archival Print Friday, February 14 7:00 PM Jenni Olson and Karen Nakamura in Conversation An ethereal Japanese melodrama with cult status about the shifting attractions between four boys (played by girls) at an isolated country school. Long unavailable, it is shown in a rare 35mm print.
February 14, 2025 at 2:53 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
SF Bay Area: My Masc II series continues at @bampfa.bsky.social in Berkeley! Click for tix!

Thurs, Feb 6 7PM — Pariah (2011)

Fri, Feb 14 7PM — Summer Vacation 1999 (1988)

Thurs, Feb 20 7PM — Something Special (1986)

Sun, Feb 23 7PM Muchachas de uniforme (1951)

bampfa.org/program/masc...
A pink and yellow poster design with pictures of masc folks - promoting the Masc II film series at BAMPFA in Berkeley.
February 5, 2025 at 3:28 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
🫵 "I want a dyke for president. I want a person
with aids for president and I want a fag for
vice president and I want someone with no
health insurance... Always a boss and never a worker, always a liar, always a thief and never caught." — Zoe Leonard (1992)

Full poem:
www.lttr.org/journal/5/i-...
I want a dyke for president. I want a person with aids for president and I want a fag for vice president and I want someone with no health insurance and I want someone who grew up in a place where the earth is so saturated with toxic waste that they didn't have a choice about getting leukemia. I want a president that had an abortion at sixteen and I want a candidate who isn't the lesser of two evils and I want a president who lost their last lover to aids, who still sees that in their eyes every time they lay down torest, who held their lover in their arms and knew they were dying. I want a president with no airconditioning, a president who has stood on line at the clinic, at the dmv, at the welfare office and has been unemployed and layed off and sexually harrassed and gaybashed and deported. I want someone who has spent the night in the
February 2, 2025 at 1:54 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Hard to imagine posting about anything but Democracy and Fascism after tomorrow, so... one more plug for my @bampfa.bsky.social film series: Masc II: Butch Dykes, Trans Men, and Gender Nonconforming Heroes in Cinema — it opened on Friday & goes thru end of Feb. 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 📽️ 👊 bampfa.org/program/masc...
audience in a theater medium shot of two people with a red staircase in the background
January 19, 2025 at 6:18 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Got to talk to @cinepam.bsky.social for a wonderful @sfchronicle.com overview of my series that opens this Friday at @bampfa.bsky.social. Please come out for Masc II: Mascs Plus Muchachas — Trans Men, Butch Dykes, and Gender Nonconforming Heroes in Cinema!
datebook.sfchronicle.com/movies-tv/be...
A woman with short hair looks thru a broken window pane.
January 15, 2025 at 11:56 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
Bay Area: Please come see my new film series!
Starts this Friday night at 7pm!
Masc II: Mascs plus Muchachas — Butch Dykes, Trans Men, and Gender Nonconforming Heroes in Cinema (Jan 17–Feb 23 at @bampfa.bsky.social).
See the full schedule & get your tix. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️📽️https://bampfa.org/program/masc-ii
January 15, 2025 at 7:19 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
"Meta is free to do what it wants with its policies... but here they’re not just saying 'hey, we’re going to be less aggressive in pulling down content,' they’re explicitly signaling 'hate has a home here!' I mean, what the fuck is this?" - @mmasnick.bsky.social

www.techdirt.com/2025/01/09/m...
Again, Meta is absolutely free to do what it wants with its policies. That’s part of its own free speech rights. And, yesterday, I explained why some of the underlying reasons for the policy changes made sense, but here they’re not just saying “hey, we’re going to be less aggressive in pulling down content,” they’re explicitly signaling “hate has a home here!” I mean, what the fuck is this? We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like “weird.”
January 13, 2025 at 4:02 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
If you start playing my 7 minute short film Blue Diary at 11:58pm on New Year’s Eve, you’ll ring in the new year right as you see the slate: “Fuck, talk, sleep, fuck, breakfast.”
The words: “Fuck, talk, sleep, fuck, breakfast” in white text against a black background
January 1, 2025 at 3:37 AM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
🚨 🚸 PSA for California folks: The new statewide "daylighting" law, banning parking within 20 feet of approach-side intersections to increase visibility and protect pedestrians, starts Jan 1 (with approx 60-90 day grace period). It applies whether a red curb or no parking sign is present.
Image of intersection illustrating the new CA "daylighting" law prohibiting parking within 20 feet of approach-side intersections.
December 31, 2024 at 5:11 PM
jenniolsonsf.bsky.social
SF Bay Area Queers: Please get your tix for my upcoming film series at BAMPFA! “Masc II: Mascs plus Muchachas - Butch Dykes, Trans Men & Gender Nonconforming Heroes in Cinema” runs January 17–February 23, 2025. Click for tix & details.
bampfa.org/program/masc...
December 8, 2024 at 9:09 AM