Local // Heather Knight

Why head of SF’s transgender office stays hopeful despite Trump’s ‘anti-trans’ push

Mayor London Breed raised the light blue and pink transgender flag at City Hall Friday evening to mark November being Trans Awareness Month in San Francisco, a tradition begun last year.

Standing next to her was Clair Farley, director of San Francisco’s Office of Transgender Initiatives, which was created under the late Mayor Ed Lee and is believed to be the first and only city office of its kind in the country. It was Farley’s idea to dedicate this month to the trans community, and it has caught on in a few other cities around the country including Los Angeles and New York.

“The importance is really about raising visibility of trans people and leaders in the community who are making change, as well as recognizing those we’ve lost,” she said.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 26 transgender or gender non-conforming people were killed in the United States last year — and 22 have been slain this year. And here in San Francisco, transgender people are 18 times more likely than the general population to be homeless, partly because it can be hard to get jobs if they don’t pass as their true gender and because they may not have financial help from family if they’ve been kicked out at home.

Farley herself is transgender. She grew up in Missoula, Montana, came out as gay when she was 13 and transitioned when she was 18. Now her identical twin is also transitioning to become a woman.

Farley, 35, graduated from Sarah Lawrence University in New York with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology and moved to San Francisco to join her twin, who was already here. She worked for 10 years at the San Francisco LGBT Center, running its economic development and employment programs, before being tapped by Lee to join his administration in 2017.

San Francisco has long been at the forefront of transgender rights — establishing a special city clinic for the trans community in 1994, becoming the first city in the country to pay for sex change surgeries for city employees in 2001 and becoming the first city to cover sex change surgeries for any uninsured resident in 2012.

Now, the work has turned largely to ensuring transgender people have somewhere to live in this pricey city. This year’s city budget includes $3 million for transgender programs and services, including a new program called Our Trans Home SF to give rental subsidies to low-income trans people through St. James Infirmary.

Farley is married to a transgender man, and they live in Alameda and are exploring the possibility of adopting children. Farley came on our San Francisco City Insider podcast to discuss the importance of advocating for transgender people when there’s so much hate toward people like her coming out of the White House.

Here are some questions and answers, edited for length and clarity. To hear our whole conversation, visit sfchronicle.com/insider.

Q: What was your transition like?

A: I transitioned when I was 18, just out of high school. It was pretty challenging because my mom really didn’t understand it. My dad was a lot more supportive. But I feel like now I look at it and it feels like so many lifetimes ago, it’s hard to sometimes remember all the struggles.

Since my work is so rooted in the community, I get to be able to be there for other people as they go through those challenges. Plus my sister just came out and is starting her transition. It’s interesting how many years later, I get to see it from a different perspective.

My mom still sometimes slips up on pronouns for my sister. It’s like, OK, you’ve had multiple years to figure this out with me so there’s really no excuse but I think it’s not intentional. For a lot of folks, you get used to one name, one set of pronouns, and it can be hard to evolve from there.

Q: Were there any particularly difficult experiences that made you want to become an advocate for the trans community?

A: When I was in New York, I was looking for somewhere to work and I really couldn’t find a job even busing tables or working at J. Crew or anything. I knew that part of that was because I didn’t pass and the discrimination that came with trying to just survive. And I had a lot of privilege, a lot of access, coming from a middle-class family and having an education.

Also I was fired from a job later for trying to use the bathroom that matched my gender identity. All of those things inspired me to be like, ‘How can I help more of my community get work?’”

Q: Tell me about the idea for an Office of Transgender Initiatives.

The office was started in 2017, and my predecessor Theresa Sparks, previously head of the Human Rights Commission, was planning to retire. I was able to meet with Mayor Lee before his passing and get appointed to the role. There really wasn’t a lot of structure in the office when I came on board, and since then we’ve grown the office, and now we’re a team of three.

The office came out of this vision that Mayor Lee supported, which was: How can we keep San Francisco a city that’s advancing trans and human rights so we’re leading the country on how we can be more inclusive? We’ve already done that in terms of health care access, transitional care, overall policies in terms of protections. We really wanted to continue to move that forward — and then Trump was elected.

A lot of our work has been: How do we keep the protections we have and have a strong response to the attacks on the community? It’s definitely not that rosy picture that had been our vision.

Q: It seems like there’s a new anti-trans initiative out of the White House every week these days. How do you keep up the fight in such a grim national atmosphere?

A: It’s a new announcement every Friday. I don’t know why he likes to attack trans people on Fridays. It can be depressing, especially from the perspective of being a leader in the community, there’s a lot of expectation to keep the community inspired and hopeful. But with attack after attack, it’s difficult to sometimes see the hope.

But what’s really kept me inspired is the resiliency of the community itself. Looking at the history of those who have come before us and others who have survived a lot more racism and transphobia. This is just another one of those moments when we have to remember how resilient we are.

Q: Can you tell me about the new program Our Trans Home SF?

A: These rental subsidies will provide a flexible subsidy — whether it’s somebody who can’t afford first and last month’s rent or someone who might get evicted. We’re looking at renting a couple of different flats where folks can be housed together.

The community has often struggled both because of discrimination in housing and being kicked out by their family and not having those resources. They’ve been forced into survival. We know that trans folks are 18 times more likely to be homeless than the general population in San Francisco.

We really want to preserve queer culture in this city. We want to make sure we’re able to support people wherever they’re at in their transition or coming out, and I think that really does start with housing.
