[2] Sparks is also a member of the Emeritus Board of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, a Navy veteran and a trained engineer.

[4][6][7][8][5][9] Assigned male at birth, Sparks expressed her gender identity at an early age by wearing women's clothing, though she later resisted these impulses in adolescence.

[4] Sparks underwent "intense therapy and an electric shock treatment" to try to suppress her femininity, before deciding at last to embrace her gender identity.

[4][11] Sparks eventually acquired sporadic work as a cab driver, bank teller, and census taker to avoid becoming homeless.

[4][8] One evening while walking through the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, an area known to be strolled by transgender sex workers, Sparks said she was harassed by a police officer, who demanded to see her identification and questioned what she was doing there.

[16] Held in the Harvey Milk Plaza of the Castro District, the Transgender Day of Remembrance grew into an annual event honored around the world every November.

[20] A year later, Sparks and Leno helped to establish broader medical benefits for municipal employees diagnosed with Gender dysphoria.

[8][21] The new law was the only governmental policy of its kind in the nation and provided medical coverage for hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery.

[22] On June 16, 2016, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee appointed Sparks as senior advisor on transgender initiatives.

[24] She served for two years as the commission vice president until May 24, 2006, when she voluntarily declined to reapply for that position: the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sparks "slam[med]" her fellow commissioners, citing the Police Commission's lack of progress in addressing the city's high murder rate, loss of SFPD staff, and low police morale.

[29] Doyle left the company in April 2005, frustrated with the constraints of the co-op business structure, and the board of Good Vibrations elected Sparks to be the new general manager.

On February 1, 2006, under Sparks' leadership, the board voted unanimously to drop Good Vibration's co-op structure but retain its progressive business roots.

[30] Facing a cash crisis, the company appealed on its website for potential investors to enable it to buy inventory for the 2007 holiday season.

[30] Before the sale, the board of directors included Sparks, Margaret Cho, Donna Daniels, Charlie Glickman, Carol Queen, Linda Shaw and James Williamson.

During his opening monologue, Leno quipped, "The California Assembly awarded a man who had a sex change as its Woman of the Year.