Trans advocates eager to see what comes next for SF as a sanctuary city

LGBTQ+ advocates and community leaders said Wednesday they welcomed the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ unanimous declaration this week that The City is a sanctuary for transgender, gender-nonconforming, nonbinary and two-spirit people.

But, they said, San Francisco can’t live up to that promise without providing much-needed support services and other forms of assistance.

“Though the work is far from over, this declaration sends a clear message to the rest of the country that transgender, non-binary, gender-non-conforming and two-spirit people are welcomed and valued in San Francisco,” said Dani Siragusa, the director of communications and development at the San Francisco LGBT Center.

Lawmakers unanimously approved the resolution earlier this week that made San Francisco the first major city in the United States to be a legally declared sanctuary city for such residents, citing the introduction this year of more than 500 pieces of legislation targeting LGBTQ+ people that the ACLU says it is tracking in legislatures around the United States.

San Francisco has had an Office of Transgender Initiatives since 2017, which aims to connect transgender, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary residents with city services and other local resources. The office’s website includes links to health care, housing, legal services and jobs, among other resources — but advocates in The City who spoke with The Examiner said that only scratches the surface of what’s necessary.

Eden Will, a spokesperson for the support and social group Transgender SF, said that these bills have led to an uptick in requests from people in other states seeking to move away from their living situations and into The City.

“We have been contacted regularly, over the years, by phone, and email, often with similar statements,” Will wrote in a statement to The Examiner, saying that the requests are usually from people saying they have scraped enough money to theoretically move.

“When I can respond to them, I inform them that San Francisco is very expensive,” Will said. “If they don’t have a job waiting, or housing waiting, then they might literally end up on the streets.”

The City has some of the highest housing costs in the country, and research has shown that transgender people who are unhoused are more likely to experience unsheltered homelessness than others, according to a National Alliance to End Homelessness analysis of federal data.

San Francisco’s final 2024 Point-in-Time Count has not been published, but 7% of its unhoused population identified as transgender, nonbinary or questioning their gender in 2022. About 0.5% of U.S. adults identify as transgender, according to estimates from the UCLA Williams Institute .

Will said that if San Francisco doesn’t include funding for safe housing or health care, then the resolution would fall short in protecting its intended communities. In a 2022 Washington Post-KFF survey, 47% of transgender adults polled said they had seen doctors who knew “not too much” or “nothing at all” about providing trans-specific health care.

“San Francisco is already a friendly place for trans people, in general,” Will said. “But we, along with many, many residents, have to have more than friendliness and good wishes to survive in San Francisco.”

Siragusa echoed similar sentiments.

“With the ongoing barrage of attacks against LGBTQ+ rights nationwide, it is essential for places like San Francisco, which is seen as a beacon for LGBTQ+ folks, to strengthen its support for our communities,” she wrote in an email. She said that her center has seen demand for its service continue to increase due to an influx of LGBTQ+ individuals moving to San Francisco.

Honey Mahogany, the recently appointed director of The City’s Office of Transgender Initiatives , told The Examiner that “San Francisco has always been a sanctuary city for people from across the globe, especially for the LGBTQ community.” Mahogany in 2017 co-founded Compton’s Transgender Cultural District , which spans six blocks between the Tenderloin and SoMa.

“With the unprecedented level of attacks we are experiencing on trans rights and bodily autonomy, more and more people will be flocking to places like San Francisco,” Mahogany said.

“We are already seeing the impact of these policies lead to an increase in demands for services,” she said.

In terms of concrete action, Mahogany said that she hoped that the supervisors would “keep this highly vulnerable community in mind” as The City works to finalize its budget, which would dictate what types of services transgender people have available to them. Various nonprofit groups have sounded the alarm in recent weeks that the latest proposed budget wipes out support for some of the most vulnerable residents in San Francisco.

Mimi Demissew, the executive director of Our Family Coalition, said she welcomed the resolution as it showed The City was “being inclusive and supportive of marginalized groups.”

“It’s really important for us to actually name and support trans and nonbinary communities specifically, especially when the majority of the anti-LGBTQ bills across the country are specifically naming trans children and specifically naming our nonbinary kids in their attacks,” she said.

Demissew said it was important for The City to identify the steps needed to actively support these communities, whether that be through securing balanced funding for support and social services or allocating more money for housing.

“While it’s really lovely to hear that we are a sanctuary city, I’m also really looking forward to seeing what that actually means,” she said.