Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to study whether the county should create a permanent Office of Gender Equity, a move that would replace years of piecemeal efforts with a single entity dedicated to eliminating gender-based discrimination across county government. The board approved the motion by a 4-0 margin, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger absent from the vote.
The motion, introduced by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, directs county agencies to study the feasibility of launching the office, according to the Los Angeles Times. Horvath said gender equity work has been siloed within county government without a central coordinating entity, and argued that a permanent office would help coordinate and advance that work going forward.
Per the newspaper's report, Horvath said in an email that women and gender-nonconforming people are facing attacks on their rights, health care and safety, and that a permanent county entity is needed to lead and coordinate the response. She added that gender equity should become part of how government operates rather than remain tied to a short-term initiative.
What The Coming Report Must Answer
County agencies now have until October 10 to submit a report back to the board, the Times noted. The County Counsel's office will work with the Chief Executive Office and the Department of Public Health to compile it, and the report is expected to include a recommendation for where the office could be located within county government along with a clear timeline for creating it.
Supervisor Holly Mitchell, whose amendment was accepted by the board before the vote, said officials should identify gaps in current services and determine whether a new office should be established at all, and if so, where its resources would come from. Mitchell proposed steps to prevent any new office's work from duplicating efforts already underway elsewhere in county government, and the report is expected to include information about existing programs and resources that could support it.
A Decade Of Shifting Responsibility
That duplication concern is rooted in recent history. The county's Women and Girls Initiative was approved as a temporary body in 2016 to identify responses to inequitable gender treatment and outcomes, and it went on to analyze the systemic issues driving those disparities. The initiative was established through a motion co-authored by former Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and Supervisor Hilda Solis as a five-year effort, according to WitnessLA.
Before it sunset in 2024, the initiative notched concrete policy wins, including a 2023 effort that shifted the county's child welfare approach from a mandated-reporting model to a mandated-supporting model for struggling families, according to a county progress report. When the initiative wound down, management of its Gender Impact Assessment program shifted to the Department of Public Health's Office of Women's Health, with funding authorized through fiscal year 2028-29. Separately, a July 2024 board action already requires department heads across all 38 county departments to submit annual updates on gender equity goals as part of their performance evaluations through that same fiscal year.
Existing Bodies Could Complicate The Picture
Any new office would also have to reckon with the Los Angeles County Commission for Women, the county's oldest advisory body on gender issues, established by the Board of Supervisors on March 18, 1975, to research gender discrimination and advise supervisors on women's rights. The county's broader legal framework already includes a binding CEDAW ordinance, enacted November 16, 2021, that mandates action across seven policy areas including economic development, housing, health care and violence against women.
That framework recently drew international attention: in February, Los Angeles County was selected to receive the 2026 Cities for CEDAW Global Leadership Award from the NGO Committee on the Status of Women in New York, recognizing the county's implementation of the ordinance, according to a PassBlue press release. Horvath was scheduled to accept the award at the United Nations in March.
Local pay data underscores the stakes for any future office. Full-time working women in Los Angeles County earned a median annual income of $49,949 in 2024, compared with $53,778 for men, according to an analysis from SmartAsset — a gap that works out to about 92.9 cents earned by women for every dollar earned by men.
Past County Action On Reproductive Rights
County gender-focused channels have moved on rights issues before. In February 2022, following a motion from Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Sheila Kuehl anticipating federal abortion rollbacks, county officials formed a multi-agency workgroup with Planned Parenthood to draft policies protecting local reproductive health care access, according to a report from UCLA Law.
The county's move also echoes efforts in the neighboring City of Los Angeles, where Mayor Karen Bass partnered with Los Angeles World Airports last year to launch a career program for girls aimed at closing gender gaps in aviation and skilled trades. For now, the fate of the county's proposed office rests on the October report, which will determine whether gender equity work in the nation's largest local government finally gets a single, permanent home.
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