San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin on Wednesday enacted a new policy that is the first of its kind in California.
The directive requires staff in San Francisco’s legal system to ask for and use people’s gender identity in court.
Boudin said it will stop the misgendering of people in court cases, whether they’re a defendant, victim or witness.
"The failure in courts, and in society, to refer to people by their correct gender pronouns can cause significant harm, and even increase danger – sometimes life-threatening danger – to those people," Boudin said in a press conference on Wednesday, the final day of Pride month.
Boudin's directive, which goes into effect immediately, requires all District Attorney staff and prosecutors to ask each person involved in a court case for their name and pronouns. In legal filings for those accused of a crime, their name and pronouns would be written next to their legal name.
Seeking to overcome the history of distrust he said trans people have with law enforcement and the legal system, Boudin said he wanted the directive to increase cooperation from transgender victims, who no longer would be "pushed into the shadows."
"The hope is that our office can model for others what a safe, just and inclusive legal system can look like," Boudin said, noting he hopes the Sheriff's Department – which decides where transgender people are housed if they're arrested – is among the other city departments inspired to follow suit.
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