Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
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As more states enact restrictions on reproductive and transgender rights, San Francisco District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood plans to introduce a proposal Tuesday intended to prevent employers in the city from screening out people with convictions related to abortion or gender-affirming care.
The proposal, as the San Francisco Standard reported, is a collaboration between Mahmood; the city’s Human Rights Commission; and former RuPaul’s Drag Race star Honey Mahogany, who now serves as the director of San Francisco’s Office of Transgender Initiatives.
The city’s Fair Choice Ordinance, passed in 2014, currently limits what kind of convictions employers can take into account when making hiring decisions, banning the consideration of convictions that have been dismissed or expunged and convictions in the juvenile justice system, among others. Mahmood’s proposal would modify the FCO to encompass a wider range of questions about criminal history.
“More and more people will be coming to San Francisco and California to seek refuge and opportunity,” Mahmood told the Standard. “It’s time for our laws to ensure that quote-unquote crimes in other states will not be used against individuals here.”
Mahogany and Mahmood appeared together on Monday to promote the legislation in a video that was filmed outside of the historic Tenderloin district gay bar Aunt Charlie’s Lounge. In the message, Mahogany shares that the FCO update was prompted by not just laws against abortion and gender-affirming care, but also by a resurgence in anti-trans bathroom bills. Fear of prosecution, according to Mahogany, has led many trans people especially to flee to San Francisco.
“What we know is that a lot of the trans-serving organizations [in San Francisco] are seeing 40% increases in participation especially from people coming to San Francisco seeking sanctuary from other states,” she said. “And so these laws really ensure that when people come here seeking sanctuary that the discrimination that they faced in their hometowns doesn’t follow them here.”
Mahogany told the Standard that an estimated 400,000 LGBTQ+ Americans have relocated in recent years — likely a reference to Movement Advancement Project data. In Seattle, the influx of trans people from red states has been so significant that city officials are weighing the need for a state of emergency.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks restrictions on abortion, 17 states are currently ranked as “most restrictive.” Per the Movement Advancement Project, 27 states have bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth and 21 states have some form of restriction on trans restroom use. Multiple states with Democratic leadership have passed shield laws aimed at protecting people from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions.
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