San Francisco residents are suing the city over a landmark program that will provide guaranteed cash to low-income Black and Hispanic transgender people who identify as "female," causing several to question whether this is legal.
The nonprofit legal group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in the San Francisco Superior Court challenging the Guaranteed Income for Trans People (GIFT) program on behalf of three hard-working taxpayers. The lawsuit alleges that it violates California law by discriminating based on race, ethnicity, sex, and gender identity.
"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," the GIFT website reads.
The program helps to provide "low-income transgender San Franciscans" with $1,200 each month and up to 18 months to help address financial insecurity within the transgender community.
"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," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. The group argues that the program is illegal and unconstitutional because of its "preferential treatment."
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The GIFT program was initially a way for transgender people to "access to "gender-affirming medical and mental health care." Democrat Mayor London Breed claimed that trans communities experience higher rates of poverty and discrimination, arguing that the program will "support lifting individuals" up.
However, plaintiffs in the lawsuit say that it is a violation to force American taxpayers to foot the bill so that transgender minorities can live better lives just because they think they were born in the wrong body.
"Specifically, 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 program's grant of preferential treatment to biological males who identify as females is immediately suspect and presumptively invalid and cannot survive strict scrutiny review," the lawsuit reads.
