California is facing a projected $7.9 billion budget shortfall, and to make up for it, Governor Gavin Newsom is scapegoating LGBTQ health programs, according to advocacy groups that reviewed the May Revise that he announced a couple of weeks ago. Of course, California may also see the potential loss of federal dollars due to negative fiscal impacts coming from the Trump White House and congressional Republicans. But Newsom is sending the wrong message by axing a fund designed specifically for queer women’s health programs, the $17.5 million Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer Women’s Health Equity Fund. Additionally, the governor’s proposal eliminates entirely the Gender Health Equity Section in the California Department of Public Health’s Office of Health Equity, a $15.5 million cut, and the elimination of the health equity office’s California Reducing Disparities Project, another $15.8 million cut. The possibility of these cuts would have a devastating impact on programs that serve LGBTQ+ communities across the state, particularly transgender, gender-nonconforming, and intersex Californians, as several advocacy groups noted in a letter to legislative leaders.
State legislators must restore this funding in their budget blueprint that will be sent to the governor by mid-June. Already, gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) told us that Newsom’s revised budget is not the last word on this matter.
As statewide LGBTQ rights organization Equality California, the California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the TransLatin@ Coalition, and many other groups noted in their letter, “Gutting and eliminating these groundbreaking divisions of CDPH signal a setback in California’s national leadership role for advancing health equity.”
“The vast majority of this combined -$31.3 million funding cut for GHES and CRDP is directly granted to more than 68 different community-based organizations,” the letter stated. “Of these 68 grantees, nearly one-third are LGBTQ+-led, and more than half are for projects directly serving LGBTQ+ populations.”
The letter explains that the Office of Health Equity is the only entity in state government with a “focused mission to reduce health disparities through culturally responsive, community-driven investment. The programs are not theoretical – they are lifelines.”
And that’s what we’d like to focus on here – the importance of these programs to LGBTQ people throughout the Golden State. They are needed now more than ever, largely due to the Trump administration systematically gutting programs that benefit LGBTQ people. The proposed federal budget passed by the House of Representatives last week bans coverage of hormone replacement therapy specifically for transgender people of all ages via Medicaid. California is supposed to be a refuge for trans kids and their families, but that status will ring hollow if the state cuts are approved. Additionally, as the national Human Rights Campaign pointed out, the House bill’s cuts pose significant threats to critical programs that disproportionately serve LGBTQ+ individuals and families, particularly those who are low-income, living with HIV, or facing food insecurity.
Add to that the potentially devastating cuts to California’s programs that Newsom has proposed, and that means low-income LGBTQ people will be severely affected.
Wiener told us that the state Senate is working on its budget proposal. “The Senate is working hard to protect our communities while meeting our constitutional obligation to balance the budget,” he said.
We’re disappointed that over the last few months, Newsom has seemed to believe it’s politically expedient to scapegoat the LGBTQ community while tip-toing around President Donald Trump and his MAGA cronies. First it was the comments made on his podcast that he’s not supportive of trans women and girls playing on female sports teams. Now comes his May Revise that defunds health programs to help queer women, trans people, and others in the community.
“Governor Newsom’s proposed cuts to the LGBTQ+ Health Equity Fund are a moral failure and a betrayal of California’s most vulnerable,” noted Joe Hollendoner, a gay man who’s CEO of the LA LGBT Center.
In this time of retreat by the federal government of funding for valued and effective health programs, it is left to states to take care of their most vulnerable residents. Now, it appears it is up to state lawmakers here to restore the health equity funding and the grant funding that Newsom has axed. The governor’s proposal is indeed a moral failure. He went to the BottleRock Napa Valley over the holiday weekend to tell the San Francisco Chronicle that he will fight for arts funding. “Make arts matter again,” he told the paper.
But there won’t be much art to make if artists, including queer ones, aren’t healthy.
