Sacramento is Now a ‘Transgender Sanctuary City’

Move over, illegal migrants. You’ve got some competition for taking advantage of “sanctuary” status and they’re coming waving rainbow flags. These aren’t people who are in the country illegally and trying to dodge ICE. They’re transgender and they are flocking to Sacramento, California, where the City Council just voted to declare itself a sanctuary city for the trans movement. So what does that mean? Not much, really, except that the policy “will restrict staff from using time or money on efforts from outside states’ legal action against people seeking gender-affirming care.” But at least they’re generating some headlines, so I suppose this sort of virtue signaling must make them feel better.

The city of Sacramento is now a transgender sanctuary city, believed to be the first in California to vote for this designation.

The move was a big victory for transgender advocates in Lavender Heights, the heart of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community.

Sabrina Naves is a trans advocate who says families are moving to Sacramento from other states that restrict or ban gender-affirming health care.

“They’ve moved to Sacramento. They’ve come here and they found a welcoming home for themselves,” Naves said.

Let’s first consider the underlying reason that some locations decide to declare themselves as “sanctuaries.” In the case of sanctuary cities for illegal aliens, they are offering sanctuary from a perceived threat, specifically being detained and deported. That’s because law enforcement activities such as ICE are actively attempting to do that. What is the perceived threat to transgender people in this case? Sacramento is in California. California doesn’t ban transgender procedures, or at least not yet. If someone is fleeing to Sacramento from a state where such procedures are banned, I suppose you could make the argument that the sanctuary label might apply, but the same would be true for any city in California. So this was a relatively pointless declaration.

As noted above, Sacramento is believed to be the first transgender sanctuary city in California. But it’s not the first in the nation. That particular “honor” goes to Ithaca, New York, which did the same thing last September. But the same situation applies there. New York has no bans on transgender treatments, even for children. There’s nothing particularly unique about Ithaca in that regard, beyond the fact that it’s the home to Cornell, University, where the liberal establishment regularly does backflips to prove that it’s more progressive than everyone else on every subject from abortion to supporting Hamas. It was a natural fit for expressing official support of child genital mutilation.

Before the people of Sacramento get too carried away in celebrating this “accomplishment,” perhaps they should be reminded of something. Long before anyone brought up the idea of transgender sanctuary cities, we had sanctuary cities for illegal aliens. (They are all over California and elsewhere.) Take a look around at some of those other cities today, such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. How’s that working out for them? They are overrun and their resources are being sucked up to the point of bankrupting them.

When you declare yourself a “sanctuary” for a particular type of person, you get more of those types of people. In the case of illegal aliens, you get criminals that cause a lot of problems. That’s probably not the case with trans people unless they arrive with a manifesto like the shooter in Tennessee. Most of them will probably just want to settle down in a community with more like-minded people, and that’s fine, except for the children who are being irreversibly damaged. But the more we learn about this situation, the more we learn that these patients almost always have other mental health issues. If you want to make yourself a magnet for that community, that’s certainly a choice you can make. But just be aware that it may bring some downstream consequences you may not have thought through entirely.