Our fight begins
February 25, 2025
I am writing today to share some important news with you, our dearest supporters and community members.
Last Thursday, San Francisco Community Health Center, alongside multiple LGBTQ, Health, and HIV organizations, sued the Trump Administration challenging three executive orders that together seek to erase transgender people from public life, defund the organizations that provide them with life-saving services, and terminate equity-related grants essential to the health of marginalized communities, including communities of color and people living with HIV.
Filed by Lambda Legal, this lawsuit is our commitment to justice. Our federal funds were directly threatened by the Executive Orders, with one of our CDC awards that focused on our services for young Trans people of color outright terminated because of the Executive Order which repudiates the very existence of transgender people and prohibits federal contractors and grantees from recognizing and respecting their identities or advocating for their civil rights. With our funding and our communities in the line of fire, we have taken legal action and we are immensely grateful to Lambda Legal.
This lawsuit is also about our unwavering commitment to the Trans community. We will not let our Trans community be expunged by fiat. While we knew that the entirety of our federal funding portfolio would be in jeopardy, the impacts of these Executive Orders are our worst fears come true and will be devastating for our health center. We serve over 5,000 clients, 25% of whom are transgender or gender non-conforming, with lifesaving, dignity-filled primary care, dental, and behavioral health care. Nearly 50% of our health center’s 180 team members are Trans, gender non-conforming, or non-binary. Everything we do addresses health disparities and racial inequities that have long inflicted harm on LGBTQ people of color, the HIV community, and the homeless community. Our programs and services are designed to correct these harms, and if taken away, our communities will be left without a safety net, and we will have lost four decades of investments and resources.
Filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, the lawsuit argues the executive orders violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment by limiting the organizations’ free speech, the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; as well as the Administrative Procedures Act.
I am proud of the collective action we are taking with many of our longstanding partners, such as San Francisco AIDS Foundation, GLBT Historical Society, Los Angeles LGBT Center, and the New York LGBT Center, among others.
I will update you further as the lawsuit proceeds through the courts. It is nearly impossible to know if the current makeup of the federal courts will rule favorably and whether this administration will accept such a ruling.
Our community and donors couldn’t be more important to us at a time like this. Thank you for all you do, for all the times you show up to take action, the times you express hope and care for our clients and staff, and for showing up as donors at year-end and at our Show of Hope Gala. It was with the needs of our Trans clients and community members and the support of so many people, people like you, that we could take this drastic but necessary action.
With hope for justice,
Lance
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