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Political aspirations aside, Sparks' personal life is still absorbing the impact of her transition. The good news is that after a decade, her sons finally reconciled with her last year, one even moving in with her. Yet other problems persist: Her siblings still won't talk to her. And after what she estimates was $100,000 in surgeries and medical procedures, she has no savings and thus no choice but to continue working at an age when many people start to ponder retirement.
But not for an instant does Sparks ever regret the change. To the contrary: "I often wonder if I hadn't transitioned, if I would have made it these last 12 years," she says. She accepts that she's still "Dad" to her kids and "Madam Director" to her employees, and, most of the time, has stopped worrying about whether people identify her as a woman. However much San Francisco can look past Sparks being transgendered, there's no question that this is a city where identity politics matter. Sparks, who left behind all the advantages of being a white male in American society, acknowledges she would never have gotten the Human Rights Commission job if she were still "a straight white guy. But," she says, "I may have been mayor."
