San Francisco is one of the few American cities to have made the official declaration that it is a “sanctuary” for transgender and other gender non-conforming individuals, and it is the first significant one.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors overwhelmingly approved the designation on Tuesday, kicking off festivities during “Pride” month in a city that has long served as a hub for transgender people, gay men, and other people leading unconventional lives.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously decided to designate the city as a sanctuary for transgender, intersex, gender non-conforming, and Two Spirt—a Pan-Indian term for those who identify as neither male nor female—people, according to Fox 11 Los Angeles.
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who presented the bill, said, “We just want to send out a tiny signal in this Pride Month to those in those locations that there are people here that care about you, that notice you, and that will support you if you make your way here.”
Mandelman recalled Harvey Milk telling him, “You had to give people hope.” Milk was a well-known gay person. “Seeing that people in San Francisco care about gay and trans people, these individuals across the nation are in much less welcoming places than San Francisco,” expressed Milk.
Trans woman Suzanne Ford, the organizer of SF Pride, remarked, “We’re humans just like you,” noting that conditions in her native Kentucky are less accepting.
“I need to put on my best game face. Ford stated, “There will be many who despise me.” I failed to pass. They may never have spoken to me, but they are aware that I am a trans woman. They despise me already.
The head of San Francisco’s Office of Transgender Initiatives, Honey Mahogany, stated, “We have seen an influx of refugees, not just from other nations, but from other states who are seeking care and asylum.”
“This declaration sends a clear message to the rest of the country that transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming and two-spirit people are valued and welcomed in San Francisco, though the work is far from over,” said Dani Siragusa, director of communications and development at the San Francisco LGBT Center.
Positively, following years of one-party rule by far-left Democrats, the once-immaculate Pacific Coast city now has a much more positive image thanks to widespread crime, homelessness, drug addiction, and streets littered with human waste.
San Francisco joins Sacramento and West Hollywood as the third Californian city to formally declare itself a transgender “sanctuary.”
Author: Blake Ambrose
