Services committee. Im chair of the committee. My name is jenkins. Excuse me. To my right is suppose adviser compass. Major well be joined by yee sitting instead of Supervisor John Avalos who cannot make it due to a family emergency. I want to recognize jim smith and loe who is recording our meeting today from sf govtv and make sure our meetings are online. Madam clerk, any announces. Silence all cell phones and complete speaker cards and documents to be included as apart of the feel should be committed to the clerk. Meetings will appeal on the april 4th agenda. Call the first item. Item number 1. Ordinance amending the police code to mandate that businesses and places of public accommodation designate singleuser toilet facilities that are available to the public or employees as allgender and accessible to persons of any gender identity, and require enforcement of the signage requirements by the department of building inspection; amending the administrative code to require buildings on land that the city owns or leases to provide allgender toilet facilities; and affirming the planning departments determination under the California Environmental quality act. Thank you. And i would like to recognize the author of the author, campos. Im excited to see and hear this hearing today. Supervisor campos. Thank you, very much. Madam chair. And thank you very much for your cosponsorship of this item, and i also want to thank my other cosponsors on the board of supervisors. Farrel, avalos, mar andly. This mar, and avalos and lee. This is something im proud of. Its hard to be proud of something that should have happened many, many years ago. But essentially what were talking about today with the first eye tim and i think its a historic item. And before i say anything, i want to acknowledge caroline. Can you stand. She made it possible. We have a common sense piece of legislation we have been working on for the last few months. Weve worked closely and partnership with the tran gender to expend general neutral restrooms. This will benefit many in our community from parents with opposite gender children to seniors who are disabled, and others disabled, who have opposite gender care takers to members of our Transgender Community who, if anyone who is gender non conforming who often times have to think twice before they go to the bathroom. They actually face harassment when using the restaurant. There are women, actually any woman who can tell you that the experience of going to a bathroom and finding an accessible and available bathroom for a woman is different than it is for a man. This provides more gender neutral restrooms for all san franciscans. Going to the bathroom room shouldnt be anyone in danger. Businesses and public accommodation and city buildings identify any single occupancy restaurant as an all gender restroom by changing the signage on the door. The ordinance allows, although it doesnt require that entities create a multistalled toilet facility that are all tender, a term that mean gender neutral or unisection. For city buildings, one all gender restrooms be provided on any floor of any construction or newly renovated building. Theres a lot of construction going on in San Francisco. We want the rules to be incorporated. And the requirements also apply to buildings located on property that is leased by the city and county of San Francisco. The ordinance also requires that if there are five or more toilet facilities in a city owned building designed for multiple occupants, that one of those facilities must be identified as an all gender restroom. San francisco is actually not the first city to end act this law. Were behind a curve on this issue. Washington dc was the first city that enacted followed by philadelphia, west awe tin, hollywood and berkeley and new york city. What were doing is right. In fact, we are behind in some respects, but were taking it a step further. We are passing the most comprehensive legislation on the top he can that has been drafted anywhere in this country. Our law is unique, in that it includes an enforcement mechanism through the Human Rights Commission and the department of building inspection. It uses many mechanisms so that we actually have compliance across the board. This legislation will help assure that all san franciscans can use the bathroom in peace without fear of harassment or confusion or embarrassment. I want to take this opportunity to thank the incredible people who have made it possible to pass this legislation. And i want to begin with my friend teresa parks from the human rights and parks commission. Teresa, if you can please stand. Teresa came to me with this idea a couple of years ago, and my only regret is that it took us this long to get to this point, but thank you for bringing this item forward. I also want to thank the Transgender Law Center and the incredible attorney sasha, if you can please stand. [applause] i also want to acknowledge deputy galmon who is the deputy disability and then there she is. Rick of the department of building inspection. Rich, come and take a bow. [applause] and we actually have the leadership of the great director of dbi, director tom huey, director huey, thank you very much for making this a priority. I also want to thank the department of realestate. I dont know if john is here. But john thank you very much for making this a priority for your department. And my friend bill bonds. Wheres bill . Bill, in many respects, i think you said this to someone that is like giving birth. Giving birth to a child, and its something we should be very proud of and i want to thank the Mayors Office because we couldnt do it without this support. I want to thank the private sector and briefly, booma and the Restaurants Association and chamber the commerce, the hotel council, they are all supportive of this effort, and the commissions in City Government that have supported this, the Building Inspection Commission and of course the youth commission. Its always the youth leading the way on these issues, so with that, id like to ask johnson, rich and teresa sparks to speak briefly. We have a pretty crazy schedule today, but if you can please come up. And again, thank you to everyone who has made it possible to get to this point. Good afternoon supervisor, kim, and campos. I want to thank both of you, but particularly supervisor campos for his leadership on this. Along with the Mayors Office. And the other supervisors who are coauthor. This is an important bill with the Transgender Community be one of them. Its amazing bills for others as well. Just to put a footnote to this bill, how important it is nationwide, its reported to me that roughly 150 jurisdictions around the United States are trying to restrict transgender people from using the restrooms. And San Francisco and other cities are stepping forward saying this shouldnt be done. This is wrong. People need to go to the bathroom. And so we thank San Francisco. We thank the board of supervisors. Thank the Mayors Office, and were very excited to move this forward. Thank you. Thank you so much, supervisor kim and campos. I want to commend you on your leadership on this and i appreciate the opportunity to say hello to you today and about this. I wish to speak in support of the legislation. Our office, the Mayors Office on disability is the overall ada coordinator for the city, and our task is to make sure all City Services are fully complaint with the ada and it has been over 25 years since this Ground Breaking civil rights legislation passed that gives people with disabilities the right to live independently in our community. And the Disability Community and the Transgender Community share challenges. We experience discrimination because our normal may look a little different from yours, but thats the point. We come in so many different shapes and sizes, but all of us are equal under the law. And the fundamental principal under lines this legislation is the application of civil rights and human rights to those transgender, gender non conforming or questioning. As you pointed out, supervisor campos, everybody deserves the dignity and the assurance of safety when they use the restroom and no one should be harassed by choosing a gender specific bathroom. What i love about this legislation is how brilliant it is. And how inexpensive its going to be in its application because all thats required is to change out a sign to extend this human rights to people. Gender neutral bathrooms have benefits. You mentioned it supervisor. It provides access to people who have children and people with disabilities who rely on care assistance. By redesignating the restrooms as gender neutral, you have doubled the number of accessible restrooms for people with disabilities so i thank you for that. I want to extend my thanks also to all of our partners on this. To teresa, to richard, to sasha especially and to caroline. Im going to look forward to walking into a restroom without being told, this is the womens restroom. You need to go to the mens. Thank you. Next well hear from the department of building and inspection. The director is here. We couldnt do this without your department. Mr. Haloran who has been talking about this for years, so director, thank you. Good afternoon, supervisor campos. Thank you forgiving us the opportunity to work with you closely, listen to rick and our staff. The input we have, tries to significant the legislation and more efficiently. This can be more successful. Thank you and then i would like to have rick haron to see a few words. Great. Supervisor, thank you very much for this. This is, as you say, very timely. And i dont know you may not be aware, but this is extremely timely in that the california plumbing code was recently altered in a way that enables this to happen without worrying about the california plumbing code. Its timely in that respect, and although we may not be the best i intend well have the best ordinance. Were working. We anticipate that will become law soon, and were currently working to help everybody transition to this seamlessly. We have developed brochure and were working with sasha to develop principals that we hope will be accepted state wide on how to adopt signage that will be compliant, and tasteful. Were looking forward to this, and i wanted to point out that we have been we have a memo originated by my predecessor in 2005, we would be granting these. We have granted them under duress. We can do it openly and freely. Thats great. Thank you and i thank the director for his encouragement in this and we look forward to being of assistance to you. Thank you very much and this is exciting. Im going to call on members of the public who have signed up to speak, but anyone, any member of the public who would like to speak, please come up. If you dont mind lining up on the right side. Your right, my left. So jordan davis, sasha, Jessica Lamond and anyone who would like to speak, please come forward. You each have two minutes. Good afternoon, my name is jordan davis and id like to thank you for introducing and working on this legislation. Im a transgender rielts activist in San Francisco. I speak in support of bill 160024 which requires restroom to be gender neutral, but city buildings have restrooms built. I have been advocating for gender neutral restrooms since i was advocating in i volunteered on a bill, and one of the positions was requiring that all new construction on reconstruction would i push because it shows philadelphia was committed to providing a less and we hope that gender neutral restrooms can be brauth to sor as well since this is a big issue. I would like to address legislation, currently pending in the state capitol. Ab 1732 introduced by is Assembly Member which would require all restrooms to be gender neutral. Theres nothing around state buildings. To this end, i would like to urge the Assembly Member to include similar bring what were proposing to california. This should be a new standard for legislation to other states and cities going forward. Please pass this as soon as possible and without hesitation. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We have another speaker len. I want to say the billions of this legislation is because of this woman who is about to speak. Thank you, supervisor campos and thank you for championing this ordinance. I really appreciate it and thank you teresa and richard for moving this forward for so many years. This ordinance will be literally life saving. They face discrimination and vaer ball harassment and physical assaults in restrooms so this will meet a huge need in our community. So i want to thank you for that. And it will reduce the Long Term Health care associated when folks have to not go to the bathroom or have the long term psychological effects of that harassment. I want to flag one thing that has been moving for me especially in contrast to what happened in North Carolina yesterday is i wanted to applaud the supervisor and your staff especially caroline for the work that went into drafting this ordinance. There was a very deliberate conversations with all of the stakeholders including the Disability Community, including trans women of color and the Business Community and it was just a really amazing experience to be apart of it and i want to applaud you and your staff for the great work you have done. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good afternoon, commissioner, supervisor. Lets be free, gender free from discrimination. Gay, lesbian, transgender. Im a man. Lets [inaudible]. Let them be guilt free from being themselves. Not just for toilet, but for everything. This is the old fashion end of china or the [inaudible]. This is america, we have opened liberal. Im a liberal. Anything sexually, we should have of all guilt free. All should be guilt free. Yes, nobody actually im not gay, im not lesbian, but i open support them. Because its good for your [inaudible] Mental Health and all that. We dont too much harm and control. Too much harm and control. Natural health, natural health. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is lynn ross. I want you to know in new york city, i partnered with a few other people such as the east coast collaborative like barbara and moses and hoffman, and we put together and we lobby for it in up state new york, and we need to do a strong lobby for things in general like that. But i want to emphasize safety, okay when it come to gender neutral because before that, i used to go to a single bathroom, you know. Because i was i wasnt at a [inaudible] state. Those were the days i used to go to the neutral bathroom. When i started to transition, i transitioned and i went to a womans bathroom. And we lobby for that. That i wont get harassed base i go to a womans bathroom and i live as a woman, but i think we need to emphasize safety, okay. People who are woman who dress like boys need to be and people transitioning need to be safe, so i would like to, you know, emphasize, thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Is there any member of the public, yes, please come forward. We want to thank senior disability action. Thank you so much. So were here as seniors and people with disabilities to support this legislation, to support the transgender and gender non conforming people apart of the Disability Community and the Transgender Community broadly. It has been mentioned how this is useful for people with disabilities or seniors who may have a different gender to use the bathroom. Thats one reason we support it. One thing that hasnt been mentioned, people are beautiful. If you dont fit the mold, youre not seen that way. This is about honoring all bodies and a whole spectrum of people. That means honoring people who are gender and gender non conforming and honoring senior bodies and all of us. Thank you to supervisor campos and caroline for helping all those use the bathrooms, but helping all bodies and people. Speaker that was beautiful, thank you. Seeing no other speakers, that concludes Public Comment on this item. Let me say that i know we have another big item coming up that im proud of this, i mean, sadly i mean, the timing illustrates the times we live in as South Carolina tries to take rights away from a community and a group of people. You have San Francisco going the opposite way. Were on the right side of history, and theyll come a time as it is with issues that well be wondering, five, ten, 20, 30 years, why was this an issue. Were on the right side of history. With that, i proudly move that we move this item forward to the full board of supervisors with a positive recommendation and again, thank my cosponsors supervisor kim, farrel, avalos and yee. Thank you, supervisor campos. Im happy to support a move this information with recommendation of the fulford and thank you and your office on this important legislation. Its more about bathrooms, but its about dignity and respect. And i have long thought we should have an ordinance like this in place, and i was educated about this issue when i served on the board of education and started sharing from students harassed based on the gender they identified with in school, and the single sex bathrooms we have, and that was when i first started to understand how important it was for us to have gender neutral bathrooms in all of our facilities. And i know that weve started that work at the School District, thanks to our humans rights advocate. It clearly extends far behind gender identity. I want to thank the members of our senior and Disability Community here today. But this is a very its not an inconvenience to the public for us