As California prepares to observe Transgender History Month this August, still a recognition unique to this state, and the nation marks its 250th anniversary, we asked local LGBTQIA+ leaders, including my Co-Executive Director at the Transgender District, about what daily life actually looks like for the communities we serve right now, how federal funding cuts and legal setbacks are reshaping their work and their organizations, and what this moment in history demands of San Francisco and the country.
Jen Valles is the new Executive Director of the SF LGBT Center. Megan Rohrer, PhD and DMin, is a San Francisco based historian, artist and advocate for unhoused and LGBTQ communities. Carlo Gómez Arteaga is my co-Executive Director at the Transgender District and a longtime organizer on LGBTQIA+ equity, immigrant rights, and economic justice.
Q: San Francisco is known as a sanctuary for LGBTQIA+ people, but what does daily life actually look like for the communities you serve right now? How does that compare to what you’re seeing or hearing nationally?
Jen: There is a duality at play. San Francisco represents a beacon for the LGBTQIA+ community: we have strength in our numbers, and we have strength in our history. The Bay Area blooms with diversity and representation of every corner of our community. I’ve heard visitors, newcomers, and locals describe a palpable sense of permission and encouragement to be exactly who we are. Simultaneously, we are also deeply feeling the impacts of the national and global crises we find ourselves in, both politically and economically. Our people are fleeing from war & targeted hate violence in other countries, fleeing from the same here in our own country. Fleeing just to be able to drive a car or use the bathroom without being sued or attacked or imprisoned as current laws are making living as Transgender illegal in states across the US. Our Trans siblings and our youth and our undocumented community members especially are fleeing here for their lives—to find their own safety in community.
Yet, it’s hard to ignore the realities of trying to make a living in San Francisco when housing, food, and transportation costs have skyrocketed, disproportionately affecting the Trans and GNC community. We are seeing more and more demand for our services at the SF LGBT Center—more than ever, people are turning to us to access the safety net resources and programs they need to survive. In San Francisco, we have a long history as a place of refuge for our community, and we’re working hard to keep it that way.
Carlo: On the ground in San Francisco, daily life for many in the LGBTQIA+ community means holding on to hard-won local protections while battling a relentless federal assault which we’re seeing play out in several ways. The federal government has launched an unprecedented attack on LGBTQ+ rights, targeting trans health care, HIV/AIDS funding and erasing non-binary identities on federal documents. Even in what’s considered a sanctuary city, this has created a climate of fear and uncertainty.
These policy attacks also translate directly into real-world need, since for many, daily life now comes down to accessing basic necessities. San Francisco’s local organizations try to provide a safety net, but the instability is coming from the top down, and its local organizations, not the federal government, who are left to absorb the impact. That’s left them in a state of limbo, unable to plan or hire for the long term, even as demand for their services keeps climbing.
Dr. Megan: San Francisco’s laws provide bathroom (in both public and private spaces) and health care access. The Mayor’s office of Transgender Initiatives serves as a liaison to help trans people resolve issues, learn about community events and communicate changing laws. The trans district helps trans individuals navigate changing ID rules, celebrate trans leadership and art and wellness. Nationally, all of these things are being outlined in states throughout the United States.
Preserving that historical identity, for the city and the state alike, is a political act, and one that stands in direct opposition to the federal government’s attempts to deny the existence and legitimacy of transgender and non-binary people.
San Francisco’s protections are important, but trans people continue to have a hard time obtaining jobs. The non-profit sector is nervous that hiring trans employees will jeopardize federal funding. LGBTQIA+ orgs have funding cuts announced and later restored so often that it is hard to fundraise. Donors are nervous that there will be retribution if they fund trans programs. Financial instability makes it difficult for trans people to plan for the future, afford housing or seek medical care. At the same time publicly, identifiable trans people face growing backlash and vile threats online because social media sites have ended the filtering that flags and silences hate speech.
In other parts of the country, anti-trans legislation makes it clear that trans rights are under attack. Here in San Francisco, people are confused if trans people need support or if the city is protecting people. It is harder to generate support for trans people and rally against the growing federal discrimination.
Q: We’re seeing LGBTQIA+ history being rewritten in real time—in policy, mainstream discourse, and in public memory. How is that showing up in San Francisco?
Carlo: San Francisco, as a city that has been an epicenter for LGBTQIA+ history, is a key battleground in the struggle over historical memory. We see this through the growing recognition of Transgender History Month, a statewide recognized commemoration of historical contributions. Preserving that historical identity, for the city and the state alike, is a political act, and one that stands in direct opposition to the federal government’s attempts to deny the existence and legitimacy of transgender and non-binary people.
Jen: Immigrants and the LGBTQIA+ community literally built this city. We chose this place because it was where we were able to take up space; to live fully into ourselves & each other; to build and organize. LGBTQIA+ people converged in San Francisco and, together, built thriving communities and economies—businesses, third spaces, and complex networks of care & mutual aid.
These spaces and systems are embedded in the fabric of San Francisco. The legacies of those businesses, those third spaces, those values of community care are what allow us still to gather, love, and organize—and what calls to those who are not here. San Francisco was the first city to create a Transgender District, the first city to name a Drag laureate, but now the LGBTQ+ community appears to be disappearing from our civic leaders’ initiatives. It is our great responsibility to secure and build on San Francisco’s queer legacy, not just to those of us here, but to the many who dream of coming here—for survival, safety, autonomy, opportunity, community, affirmation, love & joy. To the many across the nation and globe for whom our mere existence provides hope. We cannot let that hope go dark. I extend my deepest gratitude and admiration to the community leaders we honor today for fortifying our legacies and keeping that hope burning bright.
Q: Trans and queer-led organizations are facing serious funding cuts at the moment when the need is greatest. How is your organization navigating that, and what do you want funders and allies to understand about what is at stake?
Jen: Trans history is the people’s history. The erasure of Transgender people has always been a cornerstone of fascism. During the Holocaust, Nazis burned all data and documentation of Trans people in the Institute of Sexology. Transness and Queerness are historically the first to be suppressed in the process of establishing a fascist regime: after all, our existence threatens conformity and essentialism—core requirements of control. Trans and Queer people who choose to live authentically threaten the power structure because we are required to find a different path than the one laid out, which opens the door to all possibilities. People who understand they have free will cannot be controlled.
The serious funding cuts are part of the strategy of this erasure. They are not just a matter of dwindling supportive services—which are critically important for the literal survival, health & wellbeing of so many people—but the elimination of so-called “third spaces,” where we dream, and gather, and organize; the elimination of hope; the elimination of joy; the elimination of our ability to access collective power. Each is critical to our liberation. Taking down our organizations is one critical piece in the building of authoritarianism.
Carlo: The District is navigating this moment by focusing on connection, resilience and collective advocacy, even as we operate with less funding. We are diligently pushing our work forward while knowing that nonprofits across the sector are contingency planning to sunset programs, or entire organizations, given the threat and reality of cuts from every funding source.
For example, we joined a coalition of 11 LGBTQ+ service providers to publicly call on the city government to restore remaining cuts and to make funding permanent rather than a one-year stop gap. Along with advocacy with trans-led organizations and the San Francisco’s People’s Budget to broaden our spheres of advocacy and solidarity.
I want funders to understand that this is deeper than a financial issue, it is a matter of life and death, community survival and the erasure of progress for our communities. To defund these programs now is to pull the rug out from under the most vulnerable among us.
Q: What does building collective power look like in San Francisco? And what lessons from SF do you think the rest of the country could learn from?
Jen: What feels quintessentially San Francisco to me is the Free Love Movement, which I interpret as weaving together personal freedom with social change for the liberation of all. It wasn’t about fighting systems, but building an alternative based in love, self-expression, community care. It was, at its core, anti-fascist and pro-liberation for all people—a symbol of resistance to conformity. And that is what I believe we need to be embracing now. I believe with every fiber of my being that we can build a community that, with all its messiness and differences, is whole, is connected, and lifts each other up—not in spite of our nuances, but because of them. A community that works every day at practicing kindness, empathy, and connection with each other. Radical welcome in these times is an act of resistance, and it is the only thing that will lead us to collective liberation. And San Francisco holds the legacy, the energy, of that movement.
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Dr. Megan: Collective power grows when people of diverse socio-economic backgrounds, races, cultures and political perspectives work together to ensure that everyone has basic rights and dignity. The People’s March was a beautiful example of trans and gender non-conforming leaders rallying for immigrant rights. We are stronger when we speak out intersectionally.
San Francisco has incorporated trans leadership on many city commissions and boards, as employee in most city departments and as first responders. Incorporating trans voices and lived experience throughout the city, helps make proclamations, laws and sanctuary status visible and tangible.
Carlo: A critical lesson others can learn from our work in San Francisco is the power of solidarity and coalition-building. Cross-sector coalitions united to oppose city budget cuts and demonstrated a shared commitment to the entire ecosystem of care, standing together even when some received partial restorations and others did not.
Additionally, physical space is power, and local policy backed by a united institutional front can act as a shield, sending a powerful message of protection and care for our most vulnerable populations. Broad coalition building is essential, because collective needs require collective, systemic solutions, not organizations fighting in isolation.
Q: As the United States marks 250 years, what piece(s) of LGBTQIA+ history do you think the country most needs to reckon with, and how does San Francisco’s own history fit into that larger national story?
Dr. Megan: Trans culture was present in native communities prior to the nation’s founding. There has been a long history of supporting and monetizing trans art, while criminalizing Black, brown and low income trans people. Housing and employment discriminations continue today in San Francisco and beyond.
Carlo: As the United States marks 250 years, it must reckon with the fact that LGBTQIA+ resistance and resilience are inseparable from the broader American story. The most urgent history to examine is state-sanctioned violence and erasure, and how it’s repeating itself today: violence against Black trans lives, the AIDS crisis, and the erasure of trans and non-binary history now being rewritten by executive order.
From the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in San Francisco in 1966 to the trans women of color at the forefront of Stonewall, trans people have always led this movement. The federal government’s refusal to acknowledge trans people’s existence is an attempt to sever the country from that truth, and San Francisco’s history is a vital chapter in the national story.
Jen: Protections we believed were settled are being called back into question. Just this spring, the Supreme Court sided with a counselor providing conversion therapy to minors in Colorado, despite the state’s ban on this harmful practice. The decision did not strike down conversion therapy bans outright, but it puts laws in California and more than 20 other states on uncertain legal ground—and sent a painful message to LGBTQ+ youth and the people who love them.
Every major medical and mental health organization in the country is unequivocal: conversion therapy is harmful, ineffective, and dangerous. LGBTQ+ youth who are subjected to it face significantly higher risks of depression, anxiety, and self-harm. Our community spent years securing protections to keep kids safe from conversion therapy, and the ground beneath those protections is now shifting. For a community that fought for decades to end the practice of trying to deny our existence and change who we are, rulings like this reopen wounds many of us thought had finally begun to heal.
This is an all-hands on deck moment for LGBTQ+ rights, and now is the moment to act. This goes so far beyond just our community—it’s about protecting the freedom of everyone to live a life of authenticity, on our own terms.
On the third floor of the SF LGBT Center, sunlight shines through the Psychiatric Survivors Memorial Skylight, a living art piece that reminds onlookers not to forget the painful history of institutionalization of trans youth. The piece was created by Camille Moran, a trans artist and activist who worked against psychiatric abuse of queer and trans youth. As a six-year-old child in the 1950s, Moran was institutionalized and subjected to electroconvulsive “therapy” and abuse because her parents could not reckon with her gender non-conformity. The United States must reckon with its past and learn from its mistakes, or we risk repeating the darkest chapters of our history. Put simply, we are here. We have always been here. And we are not going anywhere.
Q: Despite everything, what gives you hope? What do you need from LGBTQIA+ allies and philanthropic funders to get there?
Jen: We give me hope. The ways we continue to show up for one another through mutual aid, through creating joy, through holding space as our most queer selves. We cannot take our LGBT community centers, or our service providers, or our organizers for granted. This is an all-hands on deck moment for LGBTQ+ rights, and now is the moment to act. This goes so far beyond just our community—it’s about protecting the freedom of everyone to live a life of authenticity, on our own terms.
Dr. Megan: Lawsuits by the city, state and trans leaders that stall federal laws and make it expensive to discriminate give me hope. There are also beautiful efforts to provide self-care support and transform trauma into art. There should be more funding for communal art activities for the trans community, especially for those paired with wellness activities.
LGBTQIA+ allies should speak out more—so that trans people do not have to draw attention to themselves in these uncertain times federally. Funders should help trans led organizations have the support they need to navigate the changing tides of government support. Additional funds should make it possible for non-profits to hire trans individuals—particularly the ones that need to show on federal audits that funding is separate.
The political climate is volatile, and funders and allies can offer stability by making long-term commitments, particularly to core infrastructure. Stable, reliable funding helps insulate our organizations from the instability coming out of Washington.
Carlo: What we need from LGBTQIA+ allies and philanthropic funders is three things:
Trust and unrestricted funding. The organizations on the ground know what the community needs. Provide flexible, multi-year, unrestricted funding, since the one-year budget cycles we’re seeing now aren’t enough to hire staff or plan services. Unrestricted funding lets us respond to urgent, unanticipated needs and build resilience from the inside out, rather than constantly reacting to crises.
Be a stabilizing force. The political climate is volatile, and funders and allies can offer stability by making long-term commitments, particularly to core infrastructure. Stable, reliable funding helps insulate our organizations from the instability coming out of Washington.
Join the fight for the long haul. Be partners in that long-term struggle: amplify our voices, and use your influence to advocate for systemic change. Stand with us, not just with a check, but with your platform.
