Sacramento council votes to become a sanctuary city for transgender people

Sacramento’s City Council unanimously voted to declare the city a sanctuary for transgender people, joining a growing number of local governments that have adopted similar measures.

California itself became a sanctuary state in September 2022, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate

Bill 107, which blocks attempts by other states to penalize families that come to California seeking treatment for transgender children or to avoid consequences for seeking such treatment elsewhere.

But council member Katie Valenzuela, who sponsored Sacramento’s resolution, said the measure will do more to make sure that city resources cannot be used to extradite transgender people and youth from other states who come to the city seeking genderaffirming care.

“We see this as a strengthening measure,” said Valenzuela. “This is more than just protecting the people who live here. This is also about protecting people who come here from other communities to ensure that we’re not aiding law enforcement activities in their home jurisdiction who may seek to criminalize their quest for healthcare.” City officials would face unspecified “corrective action” if found to be in violation of the resolution, she said.

“We debate the many issues in our city, but there’s no shade of gray when it comes to civil rights,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said prior to the vote. “And when it comes to talking about the human rights of people, our city is consistent and we’re strong.”

Emily Smet, an organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America who helped draft the resolution, said the language was adapted from immigration policies that cities established to limit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“We can expect laws criminalizing out-of-state healthcare in the very near future. And in Sacramento, we want to be prepared for that, she said.

Passing a resolution is just one of the steps Sacramento needs to take to make itself a haven for transgender people, Smet contends. Through the socialist group’s mutualaid efforts to address economic insecurity, she said she’s seen a disproportionate number of transgender people experiencing poverty and housing insecurity.

Eric Stanley, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, was not impressed by the resolution’s language, saying there was a disconnect between politicians’ virtue signaling and the experiences of transgender people. Stanley said it’s dangerous for politicians to present California as a “liberally safe space” that is welcoming to the transgender community without addressing these basic needs.

Stanley, who has studied the criminalization of queer and transgender communities, said part of the problem is that individuals arriving from other states assume that moving to California will provide them access to gender-affirming healthcare, unaware of how costly that care — and everything else — is here.

Living in one of the most expensive states in the country can exacerbate the housing discrimination that transgender people already face, he said.

“Trans people are hyper-represented in houselessness,” said Stanley.

The resolution is “more or less a political stunt,” he said, because it assumes the people seeking genderaffirming care all have middle- or upper-middleclass incomes.