Political Notes: Panel switches supervisorial home for SF transgender district
San Francisco's historic transgender neighborhood is getting a new supervisorial home. The decision is being compared to the Republican-led assault on trans people in various statehouses across the country.The San Francisco Redistricting Task Force voted 5-4 at its April 21 meeting to reject a motion that would have maintained the Tenderloin and its Transgender District whole in District 6 along with the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District in western South of Market.
LGBTQ advocates for the past month have demanded that the two LGBTQ neighborhoods be kept together in their current supervisor district.Instead, task force chair the Reverend Arnold Townsend voted along with vice chair Ditka Reiner, Matthew Castillon, Lily Ho, and Chasel Lee, one of two queer men on the panel, to combine the Tenderloin with Japantown, the Western Addition, Hayes Valley, and the Haight in a newly drawn District 5.
A small section of the Transgender District running along 6th Street will remain, however, in District 6.Transgender leaders had argued it made no sense to move the Tenderloin into a new district.
Their concerns ranged from seeing the neighborhood's political power diminished to the impact it will have on financial resources for the community since the city often divvies up funding by supervisorial districts. "I simply cannot wrap my head around the stubbornness and willingness to split the trans district," said Jupiter Peraza, director of social justice and empowerment initiatives for the Transgender District, during public comment at the meeting.
