NBC News
by Sydney Bauer
May 5, 2020
Lyon-Martin Health Services in San Francisco has served the health needs of lesbians, transgender women and other underserved women in the Bay Area since 1979. Named after pioneering lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, the clinic had until recently been seeing 3,000 patients a year for such needs as physical exams, gynecologic services and consultations for gender-affirming surgeries.
Now, however, it is fighting to keep its doors open amid the coronavirus pandemic. Thanks to emergency funding from the city and private donors, it will be able to operate until July 1 without deep cuts to its services — which now include screening for COVID-19 — but its future is uncertain after that.
“The city needs to see how long COVID is going to play out,” J.M. Jaffe, the transgender health manager at Lyon-Martin, told NBC News. “They wanted to do a short-term contract so that we could re-evaluate what the situation will be in two months. I think they were just wary to make a commitment to continue to support us, but we did get kind of like a wink and a nod that they would like to support us to the end of the calendar year.”
Lyon-Martin Health Services is one of over 200 LGBTQ health clinics across the United States that provide affirming and competent care to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer patients. And like Lyon-Martin, a number of these centers are struggling to adjust to — and in some cases survive — the new normal spawned by the global pandemic.
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