A copy of the new rule that will allow homeless shelters to refuse transgender people has been leaked to the media, and it contains instructions on how to spot transgender women to target them for discrimination.
Earlier this month, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it would be rolling back the Obama-era Equal Access Rule, which required homeless shelters that receive HUD funding to house transgender people with the gender they identify as.
The rollback – which HUD said would “better accommodate religious beliefs of shelter providers” – allows single-gender homeless shelters to decide if they want a housing policy based on sex assigned at birth or gender identity, effectively allowing shelters that house women to turn away transgender women and shelters that house men to turn away transgender men.
The announcement meant that homeless shelters would be allowed to determine who is transgender, which poses a significant risk to people’s privacy rights.
The news website
Vox has obtained a copy of the rule, which includes instructions of what a shelter can do spot a trans woman.
Shelter workers may use “factors such as height, the presence (but not the absence) of facial hair, the presence of an Adam’s apple, and other physical characteristics which, when considered together, are indicative of a person’s biological sex,” the rule says.
If a homeless person appears too transgender for a homeless shelter, the shelter is allowed to ask them for proof of “biological sex.”
“Evidence requested must not be unduly intrusive of privacy, such as private physical anatomical evidence,” the rule states, barring shelters from forcing suspected transgender people to strip in front of them.
“Evidence requested could include government identification, but lack of government identification alone cannot be the sole basis for denying admittance on the basis of sex.”
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