San Francisco’s landmark initiative providing guaranteed cash to low-income Black and Hispanic transgender residents may be well intentioned, but whether it’s entirely legal is another question.
Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court challenging the Guaranteed Income for Trans People (GIFT) program on behalf of three taxpayers, saying that it violates California law by discriminating based on race, ethnicity, sex and gender identity.
“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,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement.
The complaint filed Monday seeks a permanent injunction preventing city officials from paying out the guaranteed income and a court finding that the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the state constitution.
The guaranteed-income program unveiled by Mayor London Breed in November 2022 currently provides 55 low-income San Franciscans with payments of $1,200 per month for up to 18 months on reloadable debit cards, as long as they meet certain race- and sex-based criteria.
“The program will prioritize enrollment of Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex (TGI) people who are also Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC), experiencing homelessness, living with disabilities and chronic illnesses, youth and elders, monolingual Spanish-speakers, and those who are legally vulnerable,” said the GIFT website.
The “legally vulnerable” include those who are “undocumented, engaging in survival sex trades, or are formerly incarcerated.”
In other words, transgender illegal aliens with prison rap sheets are in luck, as long as they are Black or Hispanic and earn less than $600 per month, but not their White, gender-conforming San Francisco brethren, no matter how poor they may be.
What’s more, not all transgender people are treated equally. The program prioritizes biological males who identify as female over biological females who identify as males, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit names Ms. Breed as well as San Francisco Treasurer Jose Cisneros, city Administrator Carmen Chu, and the director of the city’s Office of Transgender Initiatives. Helping administer the program are the Transgender District and Lyon Martin Community Health.
“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,” Ms. Breed said in her 2022 announcement. “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.”
Judicial Watch argued that the plaintiffs have standing because the first recipients began collecting payments in January 2023 and will continue to do so until June 2024, meaning that taxpayer dollars are now funding the initiative.
“An actual and justiciable controversy has arisen and now exists between Plaintiffs and Defendants,” said the nine-page filing. “Plaintiffs contend that they have paid or incurred property and other taxes to San Francisco during the one-year period prior to the commencement of this action and that Defendants are expending, intend to expend, or will expend taxpayer funds and taxpayer-financed resources illegally on the GIFT program.”
BREAKING: Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on behalf of San Francisco taxpayers over a city program which discriminates in favor of biological black and Latino men who identify as women in the distribution of tax money (1/3). https://t.co/cCngiVM7j2
— Judicial Watch ⚖️ (@JudicialWatch) January 29, 2024
The GIFT initiative isn’t the only San Francisco guaranteed-income program facing legal trouble.
In May, the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation filed a lawsuit against two initiatives—the 2020 Abundant Birth program for Black and Pacific Islander “mothers and pregnant people,” and a 2022 program for low-income artists—saying that both discriminate illegally based on race and ethnicity.