The GIFT program would have gone under the radar without the public knowing of its existence. However, it was exposed by a conservative group, which also revealed some time ago that a dog belonging to President Biden repeatedly bites Secret Service personnel attached to the White House. 

The advocacy group has since filed a lawsuit against the City of San Francisco to challenge the legitimacy of the GIFT program under US laws.

The advocacy group’s name is Judicial Watch, and they filed the lawsuit against San Francisco administrators in January. Some of the officials indicted in the illegitimacy of the guaranteed income program are City Administrator Carmen Chu, Treasurer José Cisneros, and Mayor London Breed. Chu doubles as the executive director of San Fransisco’s Office of Transgender Initiatives.    

The lawsuit document also lists Paul Wildes, Michael Phillips, and Reed Sandberg as plaintiffs, representing San Francisco taxpayers.

According to findings made by Judicial Watch, the GIFT program was paying a non-refundable stipend of $1200 to 55 low-income transgender people. This amounts to a total of $66,000 per month. 

In addition, the cash transfer scheme was slated to run from January 2023 to June 2024. This timeline will bring the total amount taxpayers will spend on the GIFT program to $1.188 million.

The GIFT program picks beneficiaries using a financial metric. Of course, besides being a trans person, the individual would have to earn less than $600 per month. 

Judicial Watch’s bone of contention is the fact that trans people are disproportionately favored relative to other residents of San Francisco. The question that begs for an answer is: “Does a low-income earner in San Francisco have to undergo a gender transition before they can enjoy the social benefits of the city?

Interestingly, this would not be Judicial Watch’s first lawsuit against a diversity policy. In 2022, the group challenged a California law that requires ethnic, racial, and sexual diversity on corporate boards. 

 In the 2022 lawsuit against the state of California, Judicial Watch affirmed that the diversity directive was illegal and imposes a quota system on corporate organizations. The judge hearing the case upheld the affirmations and called for a repealing of the contentious law.

In the last week of January, Judicial Watch announced the filing of its GIFT lawsuit against the City of San Francisco. 

 The lawsuit points out that the GIFT program does not only marginalize binary residents of San Francisco but equally denies Latino and Black trans residents from benefiting from the guaranteed cash transfer.

So, though it is not in the books, being trans and poor is not enough to be a GIFT beneficiary; the additional requirement is to be a Caucasian. 

In a statement by Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, he said, “The transgender extremists running San Francisco are illegally using taxpayer money to hand out free cash to transgender individuals based on race and sex in blatant violation of the state’s constitution.”

Since the lawsuit was filed against the GIFT program as an initiative by the City of San Francisco, the City’s attorney general will be the official to respond to the official prompt. 

So far, the indicted parties have refused to make any statement about the unconstitutional misdeeds perpetrated under the GIFT program. The only feedback from the defendants is from the City’s attorney general.

The GIFT program is an initiative of City officials and Lyon-Martin Community Health Services. Lyon-Martin has a reputation for providing gender-transitioning treatments for non-binary residents of San Francisco. 

The LGBTQ+ community sees the GIFT program as a mini-reparation. According to JM Jaffe, executive director of Lyon Martin, the GIFT program should have started long before its commencement in 2022.