Veronika Fimbres Wants To Be California’s First African-American Transgender Governor

Veronika Fimbres/Facebook

Veronika Fimbres wants to be the next Governor of California. But first she needs your help in getting her name on the ballot. Fimbres must pay a $4,000 filing fee in order to run. As of this writing, her Go Fund Me page has received a single $50 donation.

“I decided to run for Governor because I could,” Fimbres tells BAS. “There has never been a Black woman, or a trans woman, to run for Governor and it is time for another type of candidate rather than the same old thing.”

The Sunnyside resident, who spends a lot of time in the Castro and the Tenderloin, has a lengthy history of public service. A longtime HIV survivor, Fimbres has volunteered for The Shanti Project, where she received their AIDS Hero of the Year Award.

“I worked with the AIDS Office on City Contract Compliance, and worked with Surveillance and Epidemiology to end the binary system of gender on applications,” she said. “All city applications in the future would have other boxes on them for Male To Female, Female To Male, Other, etc. I got the Ryan White Care Council to allocate $80K in rollover funds to go towards Health Care Provider Training, for working with Trans clients. I opened up the jail to agencies that could and would work with Trans inmates so that they could receive the same classes and services as other inmates.”

Fimbres has also served on Mark Leno’s Trans Initiative Panel and spent fourteen years as the City’s Commissioner of Veteran’s Affairs. She is also a registered nurse.

Her platform is broken down into ten basic tenets: Grassroots Democracy, Social Justice, Ecological Wisdom, Non-violence, Decentralization of Wealth and Power, Community Based Economics, Feminism and Gender Equity, Respect For Diversity, Personal and Global Responsibility, and Future Focus Sustainability.

Fimbres, who is a member of the Green Party, is confident that once her name is on the ballot she can build a momentum for her candidacy.

“I am solely grass roots,” she wrote on her Go Fund Me page. “I can only achieve my ambitious goal with your help. I am the first Black/Trans woman in the history of the elections to run for this position.”

Fimbres feels that her platform is the most progressive and will benefit not only San Francisco neighborhoods, but all cities in the state.

“I love my neighborhood,” she said. “I live central to the bus lines #23, #36 & #43. Glen Park Bart is down the street, as well as the library. I live across the street from the Safeway where the late Ed Lee died. There are little shops, markets and great restaurants in the area, including my favorite Dumpling and Sushi places! City College main campus is just a few blocks away–I feel I live in the Central hub so to speak.

Fimbres realizes that, should she get on the ballot, attention will be called to the fact that she is trans. “That is not why I am running,” she said. “I am running as a strong, able and determined Black woman to make a difference.  I am used to being first. I was first born, I was the first trans Officer in San Francisco’s history, first Trans person to work at Riker’s Island, and San Quentin, so being Governor will certainly be new, but it will be nothing that I can’t handle. No one works alone, and I will have the people of the State behind me”.

To Get Veronika on the ballot visit her gofundme.com