Ventura City Council CARE Policy – Special Meeting Thursday 6/26 and Pass CARE Pre-Party!

Thursday – 06/26/2025 – VENTURA – Ventura Council – Community Autonomy, Rights, and Equality (CARE) Policy (Arrive as close to 4:00 pm as possible to get a seat. Pre-party in front of City Hall at 3:00 pm)

The Community Autonomy, Rights, and Equality (CARE) Policy which will be heard at a special single-issue meeting of the Ventura City Council on Thursday, June 26th. (Agenda) This is an important democratic-values issue, and Oxnard, Simi, TO, and Santa Barbara will all be watching to see how it plays out.

“BEFORE THE MEETING” ACTIONS – Write an email to our councilmembers:

“DURING THE MEETING” ACTIONS – Speaking, holding signs, bringing good energy

  • Wear a blue shirt if you have one!
  • If you take a yellow sign to hold – IT IS NOT A LAP WARMER! Commit to holding it vertically, the bottom edge resting on your lap, at the very least!
  • We need to make our presence KNOWN AT THE MEETING!: We will provide signage, like shown above, or you can bring your own. Keep them letter-sized to as not block other people’s views.
  • We need to make our presence HEARD AT THE MEETING: Yeah, very few of us like to speak at public meetings. But we are at a point where we can’t leave any resistance on the table.
    • Fill out a speaker card at the front table. We are the first official action, after the Consent Calendar items (±20 minutes), and one Public Hearing item, estimated to take 20 minutes.
    • If you are not a Ventura resident, state where you are from and why you’re hoping your own city will pass a similar policy.
    • We will most likely be limited to 1 minute speeches. There will be a lot of speakers, so even though the city website says “3 minutes” – be prepared with a long and short version.
    • More ways to participate: (https://www.cityofventura.ca.gov/27/Government)

“I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS…”

This great website has answers!

Then write an email (this page has a link to send your message to our congress members, assembly members, state senators, and city council members at the same time.)

WHAT SHOULD I WRITE or SPEAK ABOUT?

The updated care policy is here. It is broken down into 3 parts. Pick the part that means the most to you or all three. Then write an email (this link will send your message to our congress members, assembly members, state senators, and city council members at the same time) and/or a one-minute speech.

LGBTQ+

“WHEREAS, the City of San Buenaventura supports protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, especially transgender members of the community, including but not limited to (listed CA laws.)”

The City of San Buenaventura supports protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, especially transgender members of the community, and protects transgender youth and their families from bans against gender-affirming care. CA law specifically protects access to gender-affirming medical care for both adults and young people.

Project 2025’s agenda is an active threat to lives and liberty of LGBTQ+ people:

  • NO DEI – The mandate calls for deleting the words “sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights … out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”
  • Restricted workplace rights – In 2020, the Supreme Court expanded workplace discrimination protections under Title VII for workers based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Project 2025 calls for restricting the application of that ruling to hiring and firing and directs the president to instruct federal agencies to withdraw any guidances that aim to apply it beyond that scope.
  • How to say “We’re not good at science.” – The mandate states that “The President should direct agencies to focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of ‘sex.”
  • Military ban – Project 2025 states that transgender people to be banned from serving in the military, saying, “gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service.”
  • Pronouns make us sad – It calls for legislation banning public education employees or contractors from using names and pronouns that don’t match a student’s birth certificate unless they have written parental permission.
  • Reverse Title IX – It seeks to reverse the Biden administration’s efforts to expand Title IX protections and calls on Congress to amend Title IX to define “sex” to mean “only biological sex recognized at birth.”
  • No funding for DEI – It calls for an end to federal funding of DEI programs, which are designed to also serve other groups like women and racial minorities, and gutting DEI initiatives at federal agencies and higher education institutions.
  • “And Tango makes Three is pornography!” – Project 2025 calls for outlawing pornography—and states that materials that acknowledge the existence of LGBTQI+ people qualify as such. Pornography, they say, is “manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children.”

The Rights’ Deliberate Campaign of Misinformation and Misdirection:
There will be a contingent at the meeting that hide their dislike for any LGBTQ+ issue behind a “SAVE THE CHILDREN!” facade, calling gender-affirming care “mutilation” and the parents of transgender youth “abusers.” These are also the stories the people who try to ban books and gay pride displays use. Here’s an example straight out of the GOP astroturf-playbook we spotted in a Facebook post to rally opposition to the CARE policy.

Let’s enlarge that interesting photo montage and label the parts!

  • They are deliberately conflating non-consensual “reconstructive” surgeries done on intersex babies with gender-affirming care for consenting transgender adults and teens.
    • Intersex babies have been born with genitalia that don’t match the clearcut “boys and girls” descriptions since forever. Such children account for 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births, and a lot more are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations. Since the 1960’s, American parents and doctors have been flipping the “boy-girl” coin, and non-consenting babies have received “corrective”, “reconstructive” or “normalizing” surgeries before they hit two.
    • The medical establishment no longer considers it to be normal or ethical to chop off functional bits from a NON-CONSENTING child to make grandma more comfortable when she changes a diaper, or a kid to look more like Dad in the shower.
    • Legislation was proposed in 2022 to prevent parents and doctors from making this choice for a intersex child under the age of 12 – the “Bodily Autonomy, Dignity and Choice Act.” “Research shows that the age of six is a time that, for many, gender identity has begun to form and take shape. A delay until a child is six therefore provides parents the opportunity to observe their child’s development and perspective on their own body, permits the child to participate in a decision about surgery, and reduces preventable harm to children born with variations in their sex characteristics.“
    • (HRC.org)“Transgender and non-binary people typically do not have gender-affirming surgeries before the age of 18. In some rare exceptions, teenagers under the age of 18 have received gender-affirming surgeries in order to reduce the impacts of significant gender dysphoria, including anxiety, depression, and suicidality. However, this is limited to those for whom the surgery is deemed clinically necessary after discussions with both their parents and doctors, who have been consistent and persistent in their gender identity for years, have been taking gender-affirming hormones for some time, who have undergone informed consent discussions and have approvals from both their parents and doctors and who otherwise meet standards of care criteria (such as those laid out by WPATH)…It is also exceedingly rare: In one study that conducted a retrospective chart review of a U.S. national pediatric surgical database, authors were only able to identify 108 trans minors who had received any form of gender-affirming surgery over four years (2018-2021) — accounting for 0.04% of all transgender youth nationwide. Only 10 of these patients were under the age of 16.“
    • Other treatment such as “puberty blockers” (or simply “blockers”) are a type of medication that can temporarily pause puberty and are fully reversible.
  • Official misinformation on gender-affirming care – Project 2025’s mandate states that the The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should “acknowledge that there is insufficient scientific evidence to support” coverage of gender-affirming care, despite that fact that major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, consider gender-affirming care to be medically necessary and potentially lifesaving.
  • Book Banning – This is related to a belief that children won’t “turn gay” if they never, ever, see anything related to LGBTQ issues. But despite being fully dunked into heteronormative culture from birth, kids continue to shock and dismay their parents.

Immigrants

“WHEREAS, the City of San Buenaventura supports protections for undocumented immigrants, including but not limited to (listed CA laws):

The resolution lists the various laws that CA has enacted to protect our community members from unfair and unlawful treatment. This is in line with our state’s longstanding and postive connection with immigrants, as best explained by a former president from California.

Here are some important facts as to why holding to CA laws is important.

  • ICE has shown itself to be operating extrajudicially, and City of Ventura holds law enforcement to the standards of the US Constitution
  • Economic downturn – not just undocumented people, but also folks with green cards, DACA, and other statuses are avoiding going out, shopping, working, sending kids to school or attending medical appointments. Many US Citizens are also retreating as they are married to, have parents, or otherwise involved with undocumented people and so they do not want to risk exposure
  • Right to privacy – individuals’ government records should be safe from being shared with law enforcement and the residents of Ventura should feel confident that their records are safe
  • Unfunded mandate – the City should not be engaged in providing resources to the far-better funded national law enforcement. ICE is the largest law enforcement agency in the nation
  • Community: in our County, 53% of undocumented people have lived here at least 15 years, these people are not separate from the Citizens in our community, they are our community. ICE enforcement is planting trauma in our kids (most of whom are Citizens), fearing their parents might be taken, moving on after parents are taken. This fear of law enforcement, of government, and of the wider community will cause repercussions throughout our community for generations.
  • Inability to discern actual law enforcement personnel. This leads to distrust of local police and will inevitably have consequences if people fight back against being “taken “arrested” by unidentified masked people who follow no due process procedures.

Women’s Rights to Reproductive Care

“WHEREAS, the City of San Buenaventura supports all protections for an individual’s right to reproductive healthcare including but not limited to (listed CA laws):

Project 2025 intends to wipe out abortion, contraception and other reproductive health care rights.

  • End medication abortion—used in 63% of abortions in the U.S.—by revoking FDA approval of  abortion drugs.
  • Allow hospitals to deny emergency, life-saving abortion care to pregnant patients in crisis.
  • Prosecute people for shipping and transporting of abortion pills and supplies.  
  • Permit extremists to harass abortion clinic staff and patients without consequence.
  • Establish an abortion surveillance system that forces states to report the intricate, personal details of all patients receiving abortion care.  
  • Undermine the women’s preventive health services provisions of the ACA by allowing misinformation and anti-science rhetoric to guide decision-making. 
  • Eliminate certain contraceptive methods from the ACA birth control benefit. 
  • Allow any employer to get out of providing essential birth control coverage, for any reason.
  • Make it harder for people to learn about and access birth control.  
  • Eliminate Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, even for non-abortion services.
  • Urging the Department of Justice to take legal action against local officials, including District Attorneys, who refuse to prosecute abortion-related cases. 
  • Reinstate the “gag rule” and shift Title X toward ineffective methods like fertility awareness. 

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