News & Commentary

On Thursday, April 2, a federal court ruled that officials at a California men's prison must provide a trans woman with surgery to affirm her gender as female - a surgery her doctors and medical experts say she desperately needs.

California created the nation's first paid family leave (PFL) program for workers more than a decade ago. The groundbreaking legislation has since helped many people meet their family caregiving obligations and bond with their children. But the system is flawed and needs a tune-up.

Did you know that you have the power to impact our state laws and policies at every step of the process? Every Californian is represented in Sacramento by people you can lobby (face-to-face, by email, or by phone) to vote your way.

I object to so-called "religious freedom" laws because they are actually an affront to our tradition of religious freedom. Religious freedom in our country means that we can each practice the religion of our choice (or no religion if we choose).

For more than 20 years, California has maintained a policy of denying financial support to babies born while their families are receiving CalWORKs basic needs grants for older siblings. This policy is known as the Maximum Family Grant (MFG) rule. The only exceptions are for reported rape and incest, and the failure of certain invasive, long-acting contraceptives.

Black women like Solange Knowles and lesser known individuals like Malaika Singleton, Ashanté Reese - and even myself - have been targeted wrongly by the TSA. Why? Because of our hair.

Today the California Senate’s Committee on Public Safety approved the CA Electronic Privacy Act. CalECPA would require police to get a warrant before searching devices or digital data.

Today, a federal judge issued an important ruling for government transparency and accountability. Now the FBI must disclose details about its surveillance of Muslim communities under the Freedom of Information Act according to the ruling.

Recent news of racist and homophobic text messages exchanged by four SFPD officers is troubling, but what's worse is that we don't have a clear picture of how these prejudices actually play out on our streets.