Culture

New Trump Proposal Would Repeal Protections for Transgender Homeless People


 

The Trump Administration announced a proposal on Wednesday that would allow government-funded, single-sex homeless shelters to discriminate against transgender individuals. The ruling would be a modification of the 2016 Equal Access Rule, which currently requires all federally-funded housing services to be provided without discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The proposed modification to the rule would allow shelter providers that “lawfully operate as single-sex or sex-segregated facilities” to develop “admissions determinations” for people who identify as a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) previously alleged the change in the law would prevent cisgender men from sneaking into women’s homeless shelters — an exploitive and fearmongering tactic often utilized to justify discrimination towards transgender women.

“This important update will empower shelter providers to set policies that align with their missions, like safeguarding victims of domestic violence or human trafficking,” HUD secretary Ben Carson, said in a statement. “Mission-focused shelter operators play a vital and compassionate role in communities across America. The Federal Government should empower them, not mandate a single approach that overrides local law and concerns. HUD also wants to encourage their participation in HUD programs. That’s exactly what we are doing with this rule change.”

A number of transgender organizations have spoken out against the rule, which comes after a slew of anti-transgender legislative actions, including Trump’s reversal of health care discrimination protections for transgender people last month. That reversal was announced just before the Supreme Court’s ruling that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination.

“Trump is proposing a rule allowing federally funded homeless shelters to turn away trans and gender non-conforming people — in the midst of the highest unemployment rates our country has seen in decades,” the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted on Wednesday.

The organization continued: “In a week where 3 Black trans women have been murdered, the federal government is pushing more people into the street. This is a dangerous proposal that will embolden violence against transgender people.”

According to a 2018 study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, only 44 percent of the transgender population experiencing homelessness were sheltered.

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey revealed that of 28,000 transgender respondents, nearly a third had experienced homelessness at some point in their lives. More than a quarter said they’d avoided shelters specifically because they feared mistreatment; those who stayed in shelters said they’d faced harassment, assault, and removal. Others said they were forced to present as the wrong gender in order to seek shelter.

“This new rule would be particularly dangerous for the Black and Brown transgender women who face extraordinarily high rates of unemployment and homelessness at any time, and particularly in this economic crisis,” LaLa Zannell, the Trans Justice Campaign Manager for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “Housing Secretary Ben Carson: Where should the Black and Brown trans women who have faced discrimination at work and violence in their homes and the streets go after we have been turned away from shelters?”

Although the proposal would scrap the Obama’s 2016 order requiring shelters to accept transgender people, it will have to retain its 2012 rule barring federal housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

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