Rule that could exclude transgender people from shelters moves forward

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration Friday published its rule allowing single-sex homeless shelters to exclude transgender people from facilities that correspond with their gender identity.

The new rule on homeless shelters will take effect after a 60-day comment period. Administration officials say it will make women’s shelters safer by preventing men from gaining access to abuse or attack women seeking protection.

Transgender rights groups say it will force some transgender women to go to men’s shelters where they could face assault.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development did not respond to questions about the new shelter rule, but Secretary Ben Carson expressed his concern last week in a letter to Democratic lawmakers in the House obtained by The New York Times.

“The current HUD rule permits any man, simply by asserting that his gender is female, to obtain access to women’s shelters and even precludes the shelter from asking for identification,” Carson told the legislators.

Transgender rights groups say transgender women are the ones at risk. In a report released in 2011 by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, more than half of the transgender people who had used a homeless shelter said they had been harassed.

The rule, first announced three weeks ago, was published in the Federal Register a month after the Supreme Court ruled that transgender people cannot be fired or otherwise discriminated against in the workforce, because federal protections against sex discrimination apply to gay, bisexual and transgender people. The ruling in the case, Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, was a landmark moment for gay and transgender rights.

“Secretary Carson’s insistence on pressing forward with this discriminatory policy — despite the Bostock ruling and clear consensus among experts and service providers opposed to this rule change — betrays a disturbing determination to target and endanger trans Americans,” Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va., said in a statement.

Transgender rights groups and others are likely to sue to try to block the homeless shelter rule, as they have on other administration regulations on transgender rights.