http://www.healthycal.org/archives/14289Leah Bartos, California Health Reports
Lyon Martin is a unique place, in part because of the patients they serve and the atmosphere of comfort and openness they cultivate. They serve primarily lesbian and bisexual women, as well as transgender people, providing a medical home where their clients access primary care, [. . .] hormone therapy for gender transition, and HIV screening and treatment. The clinic also offers behavioral health specialists, [. . .] There's even a program devoted to devoted to transgender telehealth, where Lyon Martin staff can share expertise via online video with transgender patients and providers far away from San Francisco.
A group of medical providers and activists founded Lyon Martin in 1979 as a clinic that would specifically serve lesbians. As a safety net clinic, the mission was to provide care that was not only nonjudgmental but also affordable — and it wasn't long before women who weren't gay began to seek services. Today, the majority of Lyon Martin's patients are lesbian, bisexual or transgender and the vast majority are uninsured (70 percent) and low-income (89 percent have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty line.)