The San Francisco Board of Supervisors declared the city a sanctuary for trans and non-binary people on Tuesday, making it the largest city in the country to make the distinction.
The statement comes as conservative states step up efforts to limit transgender rights and access to gender-affirming care. It states that San Francisco will provide a place of safety for that community and for gender-affirming care providers.
O unanimous resolution follows the city’s famous “sanctuary city” immigration policy, which prohibits city authorities from cooperating with federal immigration agents. That policy, adopted in 1985, quickly spread to cities across the country and provoked its own conservative backlash.
The Bay Area and San Francisco specifically have a long history with the LGBTQ community. The city’s Castro neighborhood is one of the country’s first gay neighborhoods, rising to prominence in the 1960s.
San Francisco is also home to the country’s first transgender cultural district, honoring the site of a 1966 riot against police violence against transgender people.
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents Castro, told The San Francisco Chronicle that the measure was directly inspired as a rebuke to conservative attacks on trans people.
“Most of these laws specifically target trans people, including young people,” he said. “As other cities and states increase hate, places like San Francisco need to increase love.”
“With this resolution, we reaffirm that our city has been and will continue to be a sanctuary and a beacon for our transgender and gender non-conforming brothers,” he added.
More than a dozen states have taken steps to limit access to gender-affirming care in the past two years as transgender rights have become a mainstream political issue.
O Trans Legislation Trackera research site dedicated to listing state bills aimed at achieving transgender rights found just over 600 such bills considered in 2023, as well as nearly 600 so far in 2024.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
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