Washington, DC – The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed an important rule requiring shelters to treat transgender people according to their gender identity in emergency shelters.
This rule updates HUD’s Equal Access Rule from 2012, which prohibits federally-funded housing from discriminating against transgender, as well as lesbian, gay and bisexual, people. The new proposed rule requires sex-specific shelters to house transgender people according to their gender identity rather than their birth sex.
"Transgender people’s lives are at risk all over the country today because shelters refuse to house them appropriately,” said NCTE Deputy Executive Director Lisa Mottet. “This action by HUD advances a common-sense approach that has worked in many communities for over a decade." In 2003, Mottet co-authored the authoritative best practices guide on making homeless shelters safe for transgender people, entitled “Transitioning Our Shelters,” while working at the National LGBTQ Task Force, and in partnership with the National Coalition for the Homeless.
According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey released in 2011, nearly a third of those who attempted to access homeless shelters were denied access on the basis of their gender identity, and 42% were forced to stay in facilities designated for the wrong gender (for example, a woman forced to stay in a men’s group shelter). Of those who stayed in a shelter, 22% report being sexually assaulted there and 47% report having to leave a shelter because of harassment or assault. Nineteen percent (19%) of transgender people report experiencing homelessness at some point in their life because they are transgender and 12% report having sex with someone in order to have a place to sleep. All of these statistics are higher for transgender people of color; for example, 33% of black transgender people and 31% of Latina/o transgender people report experiencing sexual assault while staying at a shelter.
“Homelessness and denial of access to safe and appropriate shelter has been and continues to be a significant crisis for transgender people. As the transgender community remembers transgender people who were killed as part of Transgender Day of Remembrance today, November 20, we want people to understand how access to safe shelter is a factor in some of these deaths. We thank Secretary Castro for showing leadership and compassion by doing all in his power to alleviate the life-threatening harms that transgender people are experiencing right now,” continued Mottet.
This proposed rule emerges after years of advocacy by the National Center for Transgender Equality for stronger federal protections for transgender people in housing and shelters. NCTE will file formal comments urging HUD to finalize this rule and recommending that the rule be further clarified and simplified to strengthen its protections.
The National Center for Transgender Equality is the nation’s leading social justice advocacy organization winning life-saving change for transgender people. For more information go to www.transequality.org
