Yesterday, a federal district court ruled that a property owner who refused to rent a home to a transgender woman and her same-sex partner violated the Fair Housing Act.
In response to this victory, NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling released the following statement:
“This thoughtful decision—grounded in decades of case law—is a victory for transgender people. For too many transgender people in this country, simply being able to have a place to live is a struggle. The U.S. Transgender Survey, NCTE’s national study of nearly 28,000 people, showed that just in the past year, approximately a quarter of transgender people faced housing discrimination, like being evicted from their homes or denied an apartment because of being transgender. When transgender people are denied a home simply because of who they are, they are too often pushed onto the streets: according to the U.S. Transgender Survey, 30 percent of transgender people have faced homelessness in their lifetimes, and one in eight experienced homelessness just in the past year because of being transgender.“The court’s decision, the first to confirm that the Fair Housing Act protects LGBT people from housing discrimination, is a powerful step towards protecting transgender people from the rampant mistreatment they face. This decision is firmly supported by a long line of court cases stretching back for decades that clarify that federal sex discrimination laws protecting people in the workplace, schools, and other areas of life make it illegal to discriminate against people because they are transgender. We applaud this ruling and congratulate our colleagues at Lambda Legal for this critically important victory.”
