Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garceti announced a newly created nine-member Transgender Advisory Council will advise city officials on various issues affecting the transgender community.

Today, the City of Los Angeles sends a clear message to transgender Angelenos: your voices matter and your experiences count.

The nine members of our Transgender Advisory Council will bring a new and important perspective to City Hall that will help empower trans Angelenos to lead stigma-free, productive, and meaningful lives.

--Mayor Garceti

Jeff Johnston of Focus on the Family says that the creation of such a council would curb religious liberty.

In creating this Transgender Advisory Council, the Mayor of Los Angeles and the city's Human Relation Commission are setting the city on a course where fundamental human rights will be cast aside for the sake of furthering transgender ideology.

In recent years, there has been a strong push at all levels of government to give special privileges based on 'gender identity and expression,' and these special privileges often conflict with basic individual rights to privacy, safety and religious freedom."

--Johnston

I am proud of the work we are doing to improve race and gender relations, and this new advisory council will help direct discussion at every level of city government.

Those in the transgender community are among the most misunderstood and marginalized in all of society, and as their brother in the effort to elevate issues of fairness and equality for everyone, it is important that no community is left behind in the city of Angels.

--Mitch O-Farrell, LA City Council

There's still a lot of mistrust — if they call the police, will the police be responding? Will they be treated with respect? Will [officers] be recognizing certain types of crimes, such as hate crimes?

--LAPD Assistant Chief Sandy Jo MacArthur

Selected for the Council were Karina Samala, Diana Feliz Oliva, Jaden Fields, James Wen, Jazzmun Crayton, Justine Gonzalez, Talia Bettcher, Terri Jay and Zoey Luna. Samala is chair of the TAC.

The TAC met for the first time on Tuesday.

First item on the agenda was destroying religious freedom.