San Francisco is taking the initiative and providing new services to transgender individuals.

Starting this week, University of California, San Francisco handed over its TRANS Project to the San Francisco Department of Public Health. UCSF's Transitions Project will remain at the school.

In addition to these programs, the city's Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative and UCSF's Center for Excellence for Transgender HIV Prevention were launched this week.

It was reported in the Bay Area Reporter earlier this year that UCSF was returning nearly $1 million in federal grants for its transgender programs. But that is no longer the case, officials said.

"No funds are being returned to the federal government," wrote UCSF communications director Jeff Sheehy in an e-mail on June 25.

City officials, who had expressed alarm over the potential closure of the programs, were relieved that things could be worked out.

"I don't mean to sound like the Pointer Sisters, but I'm so excited, I'm about to lose control," said Supervisor Bevan Dufty about saving the TRANS Project, the only drop-in multi-service and information center for the transgender community in the Bay Area. "I'm thrilled."

TRANS Project

After word spread of UCSF's plan to return federal grant money and shutter its programs, Dufty requested that city Controller Ed Harrington's office investigate transgender services in the city. On June 15, the controller's office released a report that recommended that the health department take over the TRANS Project.

Sheehy said that the Transitions Project will remain at UCSF under the supervision of the Center for AIDS Prevention Services for the remaining two years until its grant from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention ends.

According to the controller's report, the TRANS Project's financial problems stemmed from exceeding its $2,000 per month budget for office rent, instead paying monthly rent of $10,542. Two other projects were originally supposed to share the space with the project, but one project was never funded.

When the B.A.R. asked if funds were mismanaged by CAPS, which oversaw the project, Betsy Baum, associate performance analyst, said, "We didn't audit to see that it was functioning as it was supposed to."

The new city budget includes $150,000 to cover the transfer of the project, which started July 2. At the request of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, UCSF agreed to be responsible for the project until October 1, when SAMHSA releases $450,000 to DPH for the fifth and final year of the project.

During the transition period, the health department will search for a new space for the TRANS Project and will work with community-based organizations to assist with taking over the program.

"This is a really important program," said DPH deputy director Barbara Garcia. "The department is going to do its best to support the community through this process and we also want to ensure that we get the services up as soon as possible."

Employment program

The Transgender Economic Employment Initiative, a collaboration between the city and the LGBT Community Center, Jewish Vocational Services, and the Transgender Law Center, also launched this week. The program will provide employment services for the transgender community and employer training and support services.

It is the second city-funded employment program for transgender individuals in California launched this year. The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center launched its Transgender Job Placement Program with an estimated $125,000 two-year grant from the city of West Hollywood in March.

San Francisco's program is an 18-month project funded with more than $375,000. It is for people living and/or working in San Francisco. The money comes from a collaboration of funders including the San Francisco Human Services Agency, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the San Francisco Airport Commission, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, and the Women's Foundation of California. The initiative came about after a survey conducted by the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the Transgender Law Center in 2006 that measured the employment status of transgender San Franciscans.

According to the survey, nearly 60 percent of the 194 self-identified transgender people living, working, or looking for work in San Francisco earned less than $15,300 a year, revealing that "transgender people are unemployed and underemployed at disproportionately high rates." Over 57 percent of the respondents reported employment discrimination, but only about 12 percent filed a complaint.

"It's a very visible commitment on the part of the city and a recognition of how important it is that you enable individuals to have gainful employment," said Dufty. "I truly believe that this project is going to be transcendent for the city."

The LGBT center will oversee the project and provide the outreach and peer support services, according to Rebecca Rolfe, deputy executive director. The center's goal is to assist up to 100 transgender individuals a year, Rolfe said.

"The reasons that we wanted to create this program is that the existing employment services have not been effective at reaching the transgender community," said Rolfe. "I think people are actually being pretty responsive and interested in how they can be helpful. We are very excited about that."

Yavante M. Thomas-Guess, the transgender economic development coordinator at the center, said he expects to have 35 trained peer counselors to work with 35 clients. Peer counselors will be transgender individuals who are successfully employed who will be able to provide advice and guidance.

JVS hired two employment specialists, Natalie Stern, who is not transgender, and Sean Krainert, who is transgender, to provide individuals with employment services from counseling and training to assisting with placing them in appropriate positions. Another goal of the agency is to seek out transgender-friendly employers.

"I'm very optimistic that we are going to respond to the needs of the community and help them find jobs and advance their careers," said John Halpin, deputy director of planning and program development at JVS.

The Transgender Law Center will provide sensitivity training services to employers, evaluation of employee and employer needs, and legal referral services.

"People are so excited about being able to crack into the job market," said TLC Director Chris Daley. "A program like this in a city like San Francisco is just such a great model for other jurisdictions."

Rolfe told the B.A.R. that she would like to see the program grow "organically" and to develop specialized employment services for transgender individuals for people to use so "people know for sure that I can go there and feel like this is going to be accessible to me."

Center for Excellence

Also launching this week is UCSF's new Center for Excellence for Transgender HIV Prevention. According to JoAnne Keatley, project director, the goal is to communicate transgender HIV prevention research to California's public health experts. The $300,000 a year, three-year project is funded by the state Office of AIDS' prevention branch and is housed under the Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center and CAPS.

"There needed to be an entity who is responsible for developing resources in the state of California in HIV prevention," said Keatley. "A place where information, intervention, materials, research, [and] existing programs could all be housed and made available [to those] who are interested in serving this particular population."

Keatley told the B.A.R. that she has worked in HIV prevention since the beginning of the epidemic. She started out working in Bay Area community health care organizations and started working for the TRANS Project in 1999 as the director with former principal investigator Tooru Nemoto, Ph.D., until 2005 when she decided to take a break from HIV prevention work.

Keatley told the B.A.R. that she was "devastated" by the recent financial troubles the project faced and felt that it was "tragic" for the transgender community because of the "refuge" it provided.

Keatley believes that the new center is "going to have a tremendous impact on the transgender community in California, nationally, and internationally" due to it being a clearinghouse for scientific research and information about transgender HIV prevention.

The Transitions Project will not be connected to the Center for Excellence for Transgender HIV Prevention, according to Keatley, but she is sure the programs will work together.

"UCSF and CAPS remain committed to promoting the well-being of the transgender community," wrote Sheehy. "CAPS is doubling its portfolio on transgender research in the next year and has been funded for a Center of Excellence in Transgender HIV Prevention as a means to encourage future work in the transgender community."

For more information about the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative, contact Yavante M. Thomas-Guess at (415) 865-5555 or visit www.sfcenter.org, or contact Natalie Stern at (415) 391-3600 or visit www.jvs.org. For more information about the Center for Excellence for Transgender HIV Prevention, visit http://caps.ucsf.edu.

Clarification (Appended 7/17/07)

San Francisco Department of Public Health official Barbara Garcia clarified to the Bay Area Reporter that as of June 30, UCSF is not liable for the TRANS Project as reported in the July 5 article "City provides new trans services." At the time of the article's publication UCSF, the health department, and the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration were still in negotiations about transferring the TRANS Project to DPH, which occurred earlier this month as the article stated.