A rule from President Donald Trump’s administration practically spits in the face of equal rights protections under law by allowing homeless shelters to refuse transgender people based on how they appear, according to a Vox analysis of the rule. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson announced a modification to part of the Equal Access rule July 1 and claimed that the federal government’s goal was to “empower shelter providers to set policies that align with their missions, like safeguarding victims of domestic violence or human trafficking.”
What the rule actually does is detail loopholes for shelters looking to work around a Supreme Court decision banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Even though the new rule could allow shelters to force tall trans women or those with facial hair, for example, into all-male shelters, the Trump administration is actually trying to pass off the rule as a protection for shelter inhabitants, advocates told Vox.
“The new rule allows shelter providers that lawfully operate as single-sex or sex-segregated facilities to voluntarily establish a policy that will govern admissions determinations for situations when an individual’s gender identity does not match their biological sex,” federal officials said in Carson’s news release. The rule is also aimed at better accommodating “religious beliefs of shelter providers.”
“This important update will empower shelter providers to set policies that align with their missions, like safeguarding victims of domestic violence or human trafficking,” Carson said in the news release. “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.”
Dylan Waguespack, a spokesperson for the homeless youth advocacy group True Colors United told Vox Carson is “talking out of both sides of his mouth” in early June. “They are trying to put forward this narrative in which transgender people are protected from discrimination, but in fact, when you read the proposal itself, it does the exact opposite,” Waguespack said. “It creates unsafe conditions and unsafe barriers to housing and services for trans people in the midst of a global pandemic.”
National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling said in a statement LGBTQ Nation obtained that, “one in three transgender Americans has been homeless at some point in their lives, and this proposal would have them sleep on the street rather than get help.” Keisling went on to say that homelessness is “especially dangerous for transgender homeless persons, particularly transgender persons of color, who face harassment and threats from private individuals, as well as elevated rates of policing and violence within police custody.”
“When combined with President Trump’s recent policy proposals to increase criminalization of homelessness, while cutting HUD’s affordable housing budget and rolling back support for Housing First, it is clear that getting transgender persons off the street and out of harm’s way is a matter of life and death,” Keisling said in the statement.
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