San Francisco is in a different place than much of the rest of the country when it comes to trans awareness.
So much so, they have a public health program called Transgender Health Services. It’s a division of the San Francisco Department of Public Health and has been in operation for about three and a half years. Its main purpose is to give better access to gender reassignment surgeries for transgender folks. They also do things like provide therapy services, help prepare their clients for surgery and recovery, and help navigate the healthcare system in order to pay for these surgeries. KALW’s Luisa Cardoza sat down with Hana Baba to talk more about the program and her interview with the program’s director, Julie Graham.
JULIE GRAHAM: What we were doing early on was scrambling to create a program, trying to get ideas about best practices, trying to get a process, you know, from referral to surgeon, how does that work? It didn't exist, so it all had to be created.