A second conservative group has filed a lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco due to a program that seeks to provide guaranteed income to some transgender people.
As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, a lawsuit last year from the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation alleged that the pilot Guaranteed Income for Trans People, or GIFT, is among several that violate federal anti-discrimination laws, including the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the latter of which the U.S. Supreme Court applied to gender identity and sexual orientation in its 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County.
That first suit — joined by Republican former mayoral candidate Ellen Lee Zhou, among others — also targeted programs that help artists, pregnant women, and Blacks.
The new suit, filed by attorneys from Judicial Watch, is solely directed at the GIFT program.
Court records show it was filed in San Francisco Superior Court January 29. Jen Kwart, communications director for City Attorney David Chiu, stated to the Bay Area Reporter on January 31, “Once we are served with the lawsuit, we will review the complaint and respond in court.”
Judicial Watch did not return a request for comment. However, in a news release Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton stated, “The transgender extremists running San Francisco are illegally using taxpayer money to hand out free cash to transgender individuals based on race and sex in blatant violation of the state’s constitution.”
Complaint
Judicial Watch — a conservative legal activist group known for filing Freedom of Information Act requests against government officials — filed the civil complaint on behalf of three San Francisco residents: Michael Phillips, Paul Wildes, and Reed Sandberg. The named defendants are Mayor London Breed, gay City Treasurer José Cisneros, City Administrator Carmen Chu and John Doe.
“Defendant John Doe is the Executive Director of San Francisco’s Office of Transgender Initiatives (“OTI”), a component of the Office of the City Administrator of the City and County of San Francisco, and oversees OTI,” the complaint states. “The former Executive Director Paul Crego left the position on December 15, 2023, and, on information and belief, a search process for the next Executive Director is underway. Defendant Doe is being sued in his official capacity.”
Crego was hesitant to talk to a reporter about the program before his December departure, as the B.A.R. previously reported.
He’d said at first that “the extra publicity has caused more threats to our organization,” but went on to say there are 55 people in the program who are receiving $1,200 a month for 18 months.
The program is in its second year and ends in August. It was established in November 2022.
At the time, Breed stated, “We know that our trans communities experience much higher rates of poverty and discrimination, so this program will target support to lift individuals in this community up. We will keep building on programs like this to provide those in the greatest need with the financial resources and services to help them thrive.”
The low-income transgender San Franciscans selected were to receive $1,200 per month, for up to 18 months, on reloadable cards.
Whereas the first suit found legal justification from the federal Constitution, the second suit uses the state constitution — specifically Article I, section No. 7 (which ensures equal protection of the laws). The suit alleges this is violated in three ways: on the basis of gender identity, on the basis of sex, and on the basis of race and ethnicity.
“Plaintiffs contend that any expenditure of taxpayer funds or taxpayer financed resources on the GIFT program is illegal under Article 1, section 7 of the California
Constitution because the requirement that eligible participants be transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, or intersex is immediately suspect and presumptively invalid and cannot survive strict scrutiny review,” the complaint states. “Plaintiffs are being and will be irreparably harmed by Defendants’ illegal expenditure of taxpayer funds and taxpayer-financed resources on the GIFT program, unless and until Defendants’ illegal expenditures are enjoined.”
The suit alleges that the program discriminates against applicants on the basis of race. The complaint states that “the program grants preferential treatment to persons who identify as Black or Latino.” The basis of this cause of action was a Judicial Watch California Public Records Act (CPRA) request, which unearthed a 2022 document stating that “the program will prioritize enrollment and retention of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous People of Color] trans and nonbinary people who also engage in survival sex trades, living with disabilities, elders, living with HIV/AIDS, undocumented, monolingual Spanish speakers, formerly incarcerated, and unhoused and marginally housed.”
The suit is seeking a judge to issue “an injunction permanently prohibiting Defendants from expending or causing the expenditure of taxpayer funds and taxpayer-financed resources on the GIFT program,” and “a judgment declaring any and all expenditures of taxpayer funds and taxpayer-financed resources on the GIFT program to be illegal,” the complaint states, as well as attorneys’ fees.
