Bus Tour Newsletter #26 – November 2022

 
The Fair Housing Act protects against sex discrimination including sexual orientation and gender identity. 

HUD announced in February of 2021 that it interprets the Fair Housing Act to bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and directed HUD offices and recipients of HUD funds to enforce the Act accordingly, based on a June 2020 Supreme Court ruling in the Bostock v. Clayton County case.

In this landmark Supreme Court ruling about discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, Gerald Bostock, a gay man working for Clayton County in Georgia, filed a lawsuit against the county after he was terminated, alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court ruled in Bostock’s favor, stating that an employer who fires an individual employee merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII.

HUD’s announcement began the implementation of the policy set forth in President Biden’s Executive Order 13988 on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation (Executive Order), which directed executive branch agencies to examine further steps that could be taken to combat such discrimination.

HUD’s 2016 Equal Access Rule requires equal access to HUD housing programs without regard to a person’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. The Equal Access Rule also makes it unlawful for a landlord or housing provider of a covered dwelling to deny housing because of actual or perceived HIV/AIDS status under the FHA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

Under the Equal Access Rule, HUD-funded homeless providers also must place clients in a shelter or facility that corresponds to the gender with which the person identifies, taking health and safety concerns into consideration. Providers must also ensure that their policies do not isolate, or segregate clients based upon gender identity.

It is also prohibited for a lender to deny a HUD-insured mortgage to any qualified applicant based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.

Despite these protections, transgender people experience higher rates of homelessness than individuals who identify as cisgender. Based on a yearly one-night count by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as of 2020 there were 3,161 homeless individuals who identify as transgender living in the U.S. According to the Point-in-Time Count, the number of homeless and unsheltered transgender people is increasing at an alarming rate.

Since 2016, the number of adult transgender individuals experiencing homelessness increased 88% and the number experiencing unsheltered homelessness increased 113% during the same period.

This rise in homelessness in the transgender population is not surprising considering the high rates of housing discrimination this community experiences. One in five transgender people in the U.S. has been discriminated against when seeking a home, and more than one in ten have been evicted from their homes because of their gender identity.

An estimated 20-40% of the over 1.6 million homeless youth are transgender and LGBQ-identified. On top of that, the impact of the pandemic has made it even harder for transgender people to find housing.

Transgender people experience overall higher rates of poverty than their cisgender peers. Trans people of color experience even higher rates of poverty than their white counterparts. Around 29 percent of trans adults live in poverty, including 39 percent of Black trans adults, 48 percent of Latinx trans adults, and 35% of Alaska Native, Asian, Native Americans and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Island trans adults.

Higher rates of poverty in the trans community are connected to higher rates of discrimination due to the stigma trans people often face based on their gender identities. Over the past five years alone, 390 anti-trans bills were introduced across the U.S.

Trans women in particular experience high rates of discrimination in homeless shelters. In a telephone test on 100 homeless shelters across four states, the Center for American Progress and the Equal Rights Center found that only 30 percent of women’s shelters are willing to house trans women. In 34 percent of the tests, a shelter employee explicitly refused to shelter the tester or placed the tester in a men’s facility or in isolation.
 

Transgender people also face barriers when it comes to accessing student housing. Although federally funded educational institutions are barred from discrimination based on sex and gender under Title IX, there are still many cases where transgender students are discriminated against when seeking housing on college campuses.

One such case took place at George Fox University in Oregon in 2014 when a transgender student, Jayce M. was denied the option to live with his male friends in on-campus housing. However, the university was quickly granted religious exemption to discrimination by the Department of Education. LGBTQIA+ activists in the area protested this religious exemption, arguing it to be discrimination.

Nursing homes have also been known to discriminate against senior transgender individuals. It is estimated that there are at least 771,000 LGBTQ adults over the age of 65 in the U.S., including 171,000 transgender seniors. Trans seniors are shown to be more likely than the general older population to need housing in assisted living facilities, partly because they are more prone to be alienated from family members, be in poorer health and live on lower incomes.

Despite the overall persistent alienation that the trans community experiences, the number of people who support trans rights in the U.S. increased to 62 percent by 2019, compared with only about 25 percent of people only five years prior.

Resources for Transgender Individuals

We want to hear from you

Is there a particular topic we discuss on the bus tour that you are interested in learning more about? Does your organization host events related to racial justice or other topics that come up on our bus tour? Email your events and ideas to information@fhco.org to have them included in our future newsletters. 
 

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