San Francisco is home to what is believed to be the first Goodwill, and maybe the first store of any kind, designed as a jobs programs for workers whose genders are different from the ones they had at birth.
The city’s transgender population has an unemployment rate thought to be twice the California average.
So when a prime piece of commercial real estate languished vacant in the predominantly gay Castro district, activists and city officials saw an opportunity to put a dent in the problem.
Seven of the shop’s nine employees are transgender. Like the donated merchandise they collect and sell, all are looking for new lives.
They were referred to Goodwill by the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative, a nonprofit training and employment service.