Enrique Ramirez knows just how difficult it is to navigate America’s shelter system as a trans person. Over the last six years, they’ve relied on homeless shelters to escape the streets of San Diego.
“It was intimidating and overwhelming,” said Ramirez, who is FtM transmasculine. “I actually was housed with the men. I had specified that I would be more comfortable there when I was in shelters.”
But under a new proposal released by the Trump administration Wednesday, trans people like Ramirez could find closed doors instead of warm beds. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is poised to roll back anti-discrimination protections for trans people at its more than 6,700 government-funded shelter programs.
The new rule would allow shelters to weigh factors that include privacy, religious beliefs, government documentation and a person’s gender identity when deciding on an individual’s entry. The proposal doesn’t spell out a basis for making those determinations, leaving it up to shelters to make those calls. The document adds, “HUD’s policy of ensuring that its programs are open to all eligible individuals and families regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“It’s horrible,” Ramirez told them. “It will discourage trans people from obtaining the resources that they need.”
The proposal takes aim at Obama-era Equal Access Rule, intended to shield LGBTQ people from discrimination. Under the proposal, shelters could turn away transgender clients or require them to stay with people of their sex assigned at birth. Transgender men, like Ramirez, could be denied entry or forced to share housing with cisgender women. Transgender women, non-binary and intersex people could also be turned away.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality slammed the proposal as “a heartless attack” on the country’s most vulnerable.
“The programs impacted by this rule are life-saving for transgender people, particularly youth rejected by their families, and a lack of stable housing fuels the violence and abuse that takes the lives of many transgender people of color across the country,” Keisling told them. “Secretary Carson’s actions are contrary to the mission of his Department and yet another example of tragic cruelty of this administration.”
Eliel Cruz, director of communications for the New York City Anti-Violence Project, said that denying transgender people housing exacerbates the high levels of discrimination and violence the community already faces. He cited a recent string of transgender homicides in Philadelphia and Dallas.
“Access to safe and secure shelters, that not only accept trans folks but also have explicit trans non-discrimination protections in place, are a valuable resource in preventing said violence,” said Cruz. “Institutional barriers that limit or altogether prohibit access trans folks have to safe and secure shelters are concerted attacks against their safety.”
Last year, HUD reported that transgender homelessness went up 22 percent between 2017 and 2018. The report, presented to Congress, attributed that uptick to an increase in the number of trans individuals who could not access shelters. The agency also reported there were 3,694 homeless transgender and gender non-conforming people in the U.S., making up a little less than one percent of the homeless population (trans people make up roughly .6 percent of the general population).
In addition, HUD’s website notes that 20-40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that in one year, 70 percent of trans people said they were discriminated against in shelters, and just 16 percent of trans people reported owning homes, compared to 63 percent of the general population.
