Transgender business program honored for helping people build economic power

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recognized a local trans nonprofit this week for its program supporting trans and nonbinary entrepreneurs.

During its regular meeting at San Francisco City Hall on Wednesday, the board bestowed its Certificate of Honor to Transgender District in recognition of the group’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program, according to local LGBTQ+ outlet The Bay Area Reporter.

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Citing a 2021 Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research study, which found that only four percent of small businesses in the U.S. are owned by queer entrepreneurs, out Supervisor Rafael Mandelman applauded Transgender District for addressing the disparity “by providing valuable support to trans entrepreneurs, who face significant barriers when following their small business dreams.”

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Since its inception in 2020, Tenderloin-based Transgender District’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program has helped 37 trans and nonbinary people launch businesses. The annual four-month program provides webinars, mentorship, one-on-one coaching, and more, all free of charge to participants, as well as a $10,000 seed grant to those who finish.

Mandelman went on to praise some of the program’s graduates, who have gone on “to pursue a wide variety of business endeavors.”

“Thanks to support from the district, program graduate Jessica Lamb founded Open Doors HR, an LGBTQ+ and AAPI-led HR team. Avery Zeus started a catering company, Concept Kitchen, which works to create community through food, providing meals for many LGBTQ+ [individuals],” he said.

Carlo Gomez Arteaga, co-executive director of Transgender District along with Breonna McCree, accepted the honor Wednesday, surrounded by participants in the 2024 program as well as Transgender District program director Sam Favela, and members of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives, including Transgender District co-founder Honey Mahogany.

“Our programs are vital,” Arteaga said, noting that of the four percent figure cited by Mandelman “an even smaller percentage of those are trans-led or nonbinary-led businesses.”

“So we really want to uplift the importance of what this funding and these opportunities mean for our community,” he continued, “especially during these years where we’re ‘otherized’ and many in our community are criminalized for just existing when we just want dignity and the ability to have civil rights and liberties as anyone else in the U.S.”

Arteaga noted that San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, which provides funding for the program, has been “instrumental in helping us not only further the ideas into fruition of our entrepreneurs but also funding the next stages of what that looks like for us.”

Arteaga went on to highlight the confidence Transgender District’s program builds in its graduates as well as the importance of “the leadership of a city like San Francisco that can work towards expanding the tapestry of what our community businesses look like, and extending that opportunity to our community’s most vulnerable and marginalized residents.”

As The Bay Area Reporter noted, the 2024 Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program is already well underway, concluding next month. Mandelman recognized participants in this year’s program present at City Hall on Wednesday, telling them, “I am so excited to watch you thrive and, in turn, contribute to San Francisco’s vibrant small business community.”

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