Gypsy Taub

Gypsy Taub (born Oxana Chornenky in 1969) is a Russian American naturism advocate, 9/11 truther, and body freedom activist [2] in the San Francisco public nudity movement.[3]

Gypsy Taub
Gypsy Taub protesting Scott Wiener's San Francisco nudity ban in January 2013
Born
Oxana Chornenky

1969 (age 50–51)[1]
Moscow, Russia
NationalityRussian American
Occupation
Years active1988–present
Children3

Childhood in Russia

Taub was born Oxana Chornenky, but most people called her by another name, Olessia (meaning "Forest Girl").[1] Her family consisted of her; a physicist, inventor father; a French teacher, fashion designer mother;[4] a brother, and a sister.[5]

Early ventures

Chornenky moved from Moscow to Boston in the fall of 1988 at the age of 19 to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her family immigrating to the city the next year.[5] Chornenky lacked a work permit, so she made money by dancing at a strip club, her first experience in being naked in public.[5] She used the money to support her family.[5] As she recalled: "I grew up with all these inhibitions and judgments, but dancing helped me realize that those things were based on bullshit. Being naked doesn't make you bad. It was liberating to learn that."[5]

When she was 23, Taub attended the City College of San Francisco as a pre-med student.[6] She dropped out after 18 months as she believed the amount of studying she had to do got in the way of her spiritual growth.[6] She felt it "didn't represent the things I was looking for in terms of freedom. [...] I was tired of projecting this image of being a successful person and fooling everybody."[6] In 1995 she also changed her name from Olessia to Gypsy and became a Deadhead.[1]

Advocating career

Taub began her activism shortly after her daughter was born in 2000.[1] She is a 9/11 truther[7] and began a public access television show called Uncensored 9/11 to increase awareness of her beliefs about the September 11, 2001 attacks that 911 was an inside job, that it was ocrchestrated by the government.[1] In order to gain viewership, she decided to host the show without clothes on; the method was a success.[1] In 2008, Taub turned started a cable television show named My Naked Truth.[8]

According to Taub, the show is intended to "liberate people, expose political issues, and expose the fact that our society is oppressive and full of lies."[7]

In 2012, San Francisco supervisor Scott Wiener proposed that any city resident older than five years could be fined $100 if they appeared in public naked. The proposed law also allowed for up to a year in jail on the third offence.[5] Taub led a movement of "body freedom activists" that protested against the law.[5][7]

A public hearing on the proposed law was held at San Francisco City Hall on 5 November 2012.[4] Taub went to the hearing along with her three children.[7] The overwhelming majority of the people at the hearing opposed Wiener's proposal.[7] Taub's children said in statements that "Naked people don't bother me, and they are nice people" (Daniel), "A naked person is like a dressed person. There is no difference" (Nebo), and "If God wanted us to go everywhere wearing clothes, he should have made it so we were born with clothes" (Inti).[4] Taub wore a shift dress and no underwear.[4] Twenty minutes into the hearing, Taub stated that "Nudity does not harm children. [...] What do children do when they see naked people? They laugh."[4] She also said that the right to be nude is one of the"unalienable [sic] rights" given by the Declaration of Independence, stating that "our bodies are sacred, and an attack on our right to be nude is an attack on sacredness, beauty, love, freedom, art, and creative self-expression."[4] Taub then took off her dress and was escorted out of the hearing room and detained.[4]

Taub filed a class action lawsuit[9] against the ban at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.[6] Five plaintiffs signed the suit and it was filed by Christina DiEdoardo three months before the nudity ban went into effect in February 2013.[9] DiEdoardo stopped representing the lawsuit's plaintiffs since there were disagreements between the plaintiffs.[9] Gill Sperlein served as Taub's second lawyer for the suit.[6] He was previously a member of Wiener's campaign committee.[9]

DiEdoardo claimed that the police were discriminating in regards to who could be nude in the city, noting that they went for people who had little political influence, like Taub: "If you live in San Francisco, you know the kind of clout the Bike Coalition has, so it's not surprising the police doesn't go after them."[9] In the two years since the ban was put into effect, Taub was denied a permit ten times, once for a parade of fewer than 50 members despite there being no policy in San Francisco's police code defining a minimum number of people required to have a parade.[9] A discrimination claim by Taub was settled for $20,000 by the city in June 2015, and in September, she was granted a restraining order against the police department to prevent them denying her a permit for a nude parade at Jane Warner Plaza that was held that month.[9]

On 13 September 13 2017, Taub attended a Berkeley City Council meeting about a proposal by the Topfreedom "Free the Nipple" campaign to allow woman to go topless in public.[10] Officials of the council postponed a decision, because one of them, Sophie Hahn, felt it wasn't an important issue for the city to address, and over concerns that men would have to cover up their nipples too.[10] At the end of the meeting, Taub protested the decision by stripping off her clothes and criticizing the council members.[10] One of the phrases she yelled was, "Your sex life is a joke because you never liberated yourself from body shame."[10] Taub later reflected when interviewed by Newsweek, "[Hahn] was pretty much talking to herself. Hahn completely disregarded what most of the public comment was about as if she wasn’t even present in the chambers.… In the end she suggested that we should make men cover up their nipples to make it fair." [11]

As Lybarger claimed, Taub was notable for her "ruthless firebrand energy or theatricality" when advocating for naturism rights,[7] which garnered mixed reactions from those in the movement. One of the advocates, George Davis, said she is "bright, creative, and energetic" but also "very argumentative, and there's a question about her focus."[7] Rusty Mills said she was "good for the movement" but also criticized her "very belligerent" attitude.[7]

Personal life

Taub attended a Montana Rainbow Gathering, where she met Jamyz Smith, who was 20 at the time and came from Jackson, Missouri.[6] The two were engaged in Berkeley, California and married via a nude wedding protest at City Hall on December 19, 2013.[6] In June 2015, Time magazine listed it as one of "The 17 Most Intriguing Weddings of All Time."[12]

In early 2014, Taub and Smith posed for a photoshoot for a New York magazine storyabout San Francisco.[13] It depicts the two standing naked in line to ride a Google Bus.[13] Taub recalled the drivers having "mixed reactions. They were mostly scared," and the ones riding the bus "quite uptight" and "uncomfortable."[13] Jessica Powell, Google's vice president for product and corporate communications, responded by saying there should be "no nudes on the bus. It might interfere with the Wi-Fi."[13]

Taub and Smith lived in a flat in Berkeley from 2009, and were still living in December 2013.[1] She has three children, a daughter, Inti Gonzalez (born c. 2000), and two sons, Daniel Gonzalez (born c. 2005) and Nebosvodop Gonzalez (born c. 2003).[1] Taub said in a 2012 interview that she takes her children to events like the Burning Man and Rainbow Gathering because "they can grow not being ashamed of their bodies."[14] As of 2015, Taub and Smith are separated.[6]

gollark: ++remind 20y check America
gollark: Approximate Markdown compatibility.
gollark: But otherwise I don't think so.
gollark: Server bans are also IP-based, apparently.
gollark: Also the thing where if you interact with a problem in any way you immediately become ethically responsible for it.

See also

References
  1. Whiting, Sam (December 16, 2013). "Naked truth behind Gypsy Taub's nude nuptials". San Francisco Gate. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
  2. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Nudists-Hold-Body-Freedom-Protest-on-Anniversary-of-San-Franciscos-Nudity-Ban-243113251.html
  3. Whiting, Sam (November 17, 2013). "Nude activists cause a stir at protest in Castro". San Francisco Gate. Retrieved April 22, 2018.
  4. Lybarger, Jeremy (December 2, 2015). "SF's Most Notorious Nudist Stakes Her Claim to History". San Francisco Weekly. p. 3. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
  5. Lybarger, p. 1. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  6. Lybarger, p. 4. Retrieved April 7, 2018.
  7. Lybarger, p. 2. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  8. 2. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  9. Lybarger, p. 5. Retrieved April 20, 2018.
  10. Raguso, Emilie (September 13, 2017). "Naked activist slams city officials after ‘free the nipple’ proposal dies". Newsweek. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  11. "A naked protester turned up at a council meeting in Berkeley to "free the nipple"". 14 September 2017.
  12. "The 17 Most Intriguing Weddings of All Time". Time. June 17, 2015. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
  13. Bowles, Nellie (March 12, 2014). "Who Are These Naked People Getting on My Google Bus?". Recode. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
  14. Kepka, Mike (October 13, 2012). "Free to be nude…for now". San Francisco Gate. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
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