At Tuesday night’s Council meeting, the Council passed a motion (Agenda, 16C) the City Council passed a resolution affirming the city’s support for gender diverse, transgender, and intersex persons.
The resolution, based on a similar one that affirmed the city’s protection for people regardless of immigration status, directed city staff to draft a motion that would clarify that no city resources would be used to aid other governments in tracking care given to gender diverse, transgender, and intersex, patients or help other governments block or prosecute people because of this care.
“We’ve seen in other states and across the country in general, government resources used to target marginalized communities,” Councilmember Natalya Zernitskaya, who co-authored the motion, clarified. “This will ensure that Santa Monica’s resources will not be used to target marginalized folks who are seeking gender affirming care.”
Councilmember Dan Hall, read a statement introducing and supporting the measure, which can be read below:
Thank you Mayor Negrete and to my colleagues for indulging me in making a short statement on this issue tonight, I know it’s very late but this is very important to Councilmember Zernitskaya and I and our siblings in the LGBTQ+ community, which hasn’t always been supported from this dais.
Our request reaffirms a simple but essential truth: in Santa Monica, we do not and will not stand by while the rights of our transgender, gender diverse, and intersex neighbors are threatened by anti-LGBTQ political forces out of state or at the federal level.
Across the country, we have seen a frightening rise in efforts to restrict access to gender-affirming health care—which is an attack not just on medical freedom but on the dignity and existence of transgender, gender diverse, and intersex people themselves. We have seen states pass laws criminalizing doctors for providing care, targeting families for supporting their children, and even attempting to track those who seek gender-affirming treatment, in their states and outside of their states. For example, last year we saw the Texas Attorney General sue for medical records of Texas minors from a Seattle based Children’s hospital that was providing those minors care. And now, we are seeing efforts at the federal level to weaponize government resources against the transgender community. And we have hospitals here in Santa Monica that provide varying types of gender-affirming care.
Our item requests an ordinance, exactly like we have done for our undocumented immigrant community, to ensure that no city resources—no funds, no personnel, no data—will be used to aid in the tracking, obstruction, or criminalization of gender-affirming care. We want to ensure that the City of Santa Monica will not assist in any effort that seeks to intimidate or harm transgender, gender diverse, and intersex individuals or collect their data. We believe in bodily autonomy. We believe in privacy. We believe that access to health care is a right, not a privilege.
To those who seek care either as Santa Monicans or from elsewhere, to the parents supporting their children, and to the doctors providing lifesaving treatment—know this: the City of Santa Monica stands with you, this Council stands with you, and our city is a place of safety, dignity, and respect. So thank you colleagues for giving me that time and I think Councilmember Zernitskaya wants to say a few words as well.
