February 10, 1999

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning Youth Task Force

2. Call to Order and Roll Call
   

   The meeting was called to order at 6:28 PM. Present: Vitaly, Butler, Chen, DeVries, Kutner, Lamo, Rothman, Turner (8) Tardy: Ozoa(1) Absent: Michaels, Otalvaro-Hormillosa, Prozan, Robertson, Slozberg (5)

3. Approval of Agenda: Motion to approve agenda, seconded and approved. (Objections to agenda could be but not limited to: amending the order of items on the agenda, asking to remove an item from the agenda, correct typographical errors, etc.)

4. Approval of Minutes January 26, 1999. Motion to amend minutes under New Business: Section D, minutes should read "DHS has been approached regarding funding for the LGBTQQ youth shelter and we are awaiting official approval." seconded and approved. The minutes from the meeting incorrectly stated that DHS had already approved funds for the shelter. (Objections to minutes could be, but not limited to, typographical errors, minutes do not accurately reflect the content of the meeting they are for, some pertinent facts are missing...)

5. New Business:

   2. Discussion and possible action re: Discussion of members who have been absent. Last meeting members voted to amend the attendance policy to " Any member whom the TF certifies to have missed three regularly scheduled meetings of the Task Force in any six month period, with consideration of the Task Force, shall be deemed to have resigned from the Task Force." Rebecca Prozan and Sky Rodgers have both misses 3 or more Task Force meetings.

      Sky Rodgers has resigned from the Task Force due to personal time conflicts so no further discussion is needed regarding attendance.

      Rebecca Prozan has difficulty attending meetings but she is committed to the Task Force and is willing to attend meetings on an as needed basis. Task Force members moved to keep Rebecca on the Task Force but would like to have reports on her activity so that we are abreast on her activity with the Task Force. Members felt that her name should be on each agenda for review so that we can have updates at that time.

      Vitaly requested the Molly Ingraham and Michael Johnson be considered for the vacant seat left by Sky Rogers before any other candidates are approached.

   3. Discussion and possible action re: Draft legislation mandating sensitivity trainings about LGBTQQ youth. This legislation contains revisions which were discussed at our regular meeting of January 13. Additional revisions to the legislation were discussed.

      -Remove line 17-19 on Page 4, "The City agency or department may, but is not required to, consider such material breach as grounds for terminating the contract or not renewing the contract, partially or in its entirety."

      -Replace with "The city agencies or department must report all contract breaches to the joint Youth Commission and Human Rights Commission committee which oversaw the development of trainings, on their next regularly scheduled meeting."

      -Include Questioning to the groups which are covered in the definition of sensitivity training. There was an extensive discussion about the need for including Questioning and Queer within the definition of training, there was a consensus to include Questioning into the definition of sensitivity trainings.

      -Page 3, Section D include immigrant LGBTQQ youth on line 7 instead of transgender, since transgender youth are already mentioned on line 9.

      -Page 3, Section E line 10 "health including mental health and substance abuse"

      -Page 3, members readdressed the concern that some youth do identify as Queer and that service providers should be aware of what that means. Consensus was reached to add in Section D the word Queer.

      -Page 1, Section B include Sexual Abuse as on of the issues which affect LGBTQQ youth.

   4. Discussion and possible action re: Needs assessment legislation and legislation regarding the use and misuse of Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis.

      John Kennedy, our deputy City Attorney, felt that legislation mandating needs assessments for departments would not be effective, he felt instead that we should focus on developing written agreements with the Departments before our term ends. The written agreements should include what steps the Department will take to be more sensitive to LGBTQQ youth and then we can include those agreements in our report to the Board.

      Regarding the GID legislation he said that we should first do research into what the Department of Public Health (DPH) and City Hospitals currently do and how the diagnosis is used. If in our research we discover that there are specific examples of things that are done which are insensitive or could be deemed misuses of GID diagnosis we could draft legislation around those examples but the legislation would only affect DPH and City hospitals not private doctors or mental health providers.

      Vitaly stated that DPH does not currently use GID but they can develop guidelines for private clinic which states they should not use GID. There should be a public document which states that DPH does not condone the use of GID diagnosis in the private sector.

      Health and Mental will discuss with Dana Van Gorder DPH’s policy regarding GID and GIDC and include in their letter to the Director of DPH that a policy statement should be developed which could be sent to private health and mental health services.

   5. Discussion and possible action re: Breaking out into working groups. Working groups did not meet.

   6. Working group reports.

      -Family, Housing and Shelter: They have developed a timeline which will help direct their work through June and will have a meeting with Bill Bettencourt, Evelyn Potes, Tom Rutherford, a representative from Maggie Donahue’s office and a representative from Huckleberry House. The meeting will be tentatively scheduled for March 5 in the afternoon. The working group’s next meeting will be Saturday, February 20^th, 3:30pm, @ LYRIC.

      Regarding the recommendation which calls for inspection of hotels in which LGBTQQ youth stay Health and Mental health working group suggested that a person should be designated within DHS that will deal with LGBTQQ youth issues and help to ensure inspection of the hotels.

      Gina wanted information about whether the proposed temporary, emergency, LGBTQQ shelter would still be held at EVRC? Katz’s office is still working on this idea but no definite site has been established. Legal Services for Children has written a letter to Supervisor Katz which will support the development of a temporary LGBTQQ youth shelter. There are several issues regarding the shelter and we will update everyone as developments occur.

      -Health and Mental Health: They have met with Dana Van Gorder of DPH and he is looking in to several issues for the Task Force. The working group is planning on writing a letter to the Director of the Public Health Department, Mitch Katz, which will explain recommendations the Task Force feels need to be implemented and request that the Department establish a timeline for when the Department will implement these recommendations.

      Dana Van Gorder and the working group discussed tracking sexual orientation of youth who access services, Dana stated that in the Community Mental Health component sexual orientation is not tracked at all. In some areas age and sex are tracked and sexual orientation is supposed to be tracked but tracking is inconsistent. They will try to get Mitch Katz to sign on to tracking sexual orientation across the Department.

      -Juvenile Justice: They met with Robert Wertz and will follow up with a letter which spells out the specific support we can provide to his department and include language in the letter which talks about timelines for implementation for the specific Juvenile Justice recommendations. Juvenile Justice offered to show that letter to other working groups if they would like to draft similar letters. The next meeting of the working group will be Saturday February 20^th, 4:30pm @ LYRIC.

      -Youth and Schools: The working group has pulled together the lists of sensitive teachers throughout the district, they will be meeting with these teachers soon. The working group is also pulling together information about the different programs which currently provide services to SFUSD so that we can include them in our final report. They will be holding focus groups with high schools students at LYRIC on March 17 to discuss LGBTQQ issues.

   7. Discussion and possible action re: Setting next meeting’s agenda. The next Task Force meeting will be February 23, 1999 at City Hall. Discussion of members who have missed more than 3 meetings: Rebecca Prozan, Sensitivity training legislation and the status of vacant seat on the Task Force will be discussed. If you would like to add an agenda item to the agenda please contact Josh at 554.6585 by Monday, February 15^th.

   8. Announcements

      -Bryan Kutner suggested that all working groups provide the Task Force with written reports of their work group’s progress.

      -Andrew Blechman from ABC news is doing a story on Transgender youth and is looking for Transgender youth under the age of 16 to be a part of this documentary or provide anonymous background information for the story. Contact Meg Rothman if you feel you know any young people that could be a part of this story, 650.494.0993 X 32 or call the 1-800 number, 1.800.221.7386 X 6237 ABC News, Mr. Andrew Blechman.

      -Bryan handed out information from the Harm Reduction Coalition which discusses harm reduction guidelines for drug abuse and use.

      -The San Francisco Youth Commission and Supervisor Leland Yee are cosponsoring a Youth Budget Hearing on Wednesday, March 3 from 4-7pm in Room 263 of City Hall please get young people to attend.

   9. Public Comment: There was no public comment

   10. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 7:57pm