The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a new rule that would enable federally funded homeless shelters to take sex and gender identity into consideration before accommodating someone. A day before the proposal was announced; Secretary Ben Carson told Congress that he didn't anticipate any sort of changes to the Equal Access Rule, that required shelters to provide lodging even to transgender people.
In a recently released statement, the department said it is gearing up to publish a revamped version of the Equal Access Rule, which was announced under President Barack Obama. The 2016 part of the Equal Access Rule made it compulsory for shelters to provide lodging without considering sex and gender identity.
This is part of the Trump administration's ongoing attack on federal protections for transgender Americans. According to the statement, the new rule enables shelter providers that operate as single-sex or sex-segregated facilities to come up with a policy that will regulate admissions determinations for situations when a person's gender identity does not coincide with their biological sex.
The department had proposed a similar rule change in 2019, releasing a statement that suggested the new rule would accommodate shelter providers' religious beliefs, along with a slew of other practical concerns. The proposed change required a shelter that does not accommodate transgender people to provide information about other nearby shelters that accept people regardless of their gender identity.
On June 1, several legal organizations as well as transgender advocacy groups criticized the proposed rule, which has been announced just a week after the administration said it was reversing another Obama-era regulation that restricted discrimination against transgender patients in health care. That rule is already facing legal challenges, CNN reported.
The new rule will pose serious threats to the Black and brown transgender women who are subject to high rates of unemployment and homelessness, especially in this economic crisis, American Civil Liberties Union's LaLa Zannell pointed out. Currently serving as the ACLU's Trans Justice Campaign manager, Zannell emphasized that shelters receiving funds from taxpayers should be open to everyone.
The executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, Mara Keisling accused HUD Secretary Ben Carson of contradicting his department's mission by trying to make shelters dangerous for those who need them while endangering the lives of marginalized people.
Keisling said the proposal disregards a Supreme Court ruling last month that confirmed that federal civil rights law protects transgender, lesbian, and gay workers, saying that it will not hold. Homelessness has been an issue for American transgender people for quite some time now, with one in five transgender people have experienced homelessness during their lifetime, according to a National Center for Transgender Equality survey.