The First Coating Of Snow…

Brought havoc to the roads, but it is also hard on the homeless who are out in the cold.

For Transgender Homeless, Choice Of Shelter Can Prevent Violence
A pilot policy to allow transgender people to choose between men's and women's shelters has reduced violence. But women's shelters are safer for either identity.
City Limits
By Diana Scholl
Monday, Dec 6, 2010

Tiffany Jones became homeless when she aged out of foster care last year. Although Jones identifies as a woman and takes female hormones, her legal paperwork identifies her as a man. But Jones was pleasantly surprised when she went to apply for help at a men's shelter last September and was asked if she was transgender and wanted to live in a women’s shelter.
[…]
Jones was fortunate that the staff member who handled her intake at the men's shelter knew about [ the city Department of Homeless Services (DHS) policy allowing a transgender and gender nonconforming person to choose to stay in the shelter for the gender that he or she identifies as, regardless of whether the person has taken legal or medical steps to align his or her body with that identity.

New York City's policy was implemented in January 2006 after LGBT advocates lobbied DHS for three years about ending the harassment of transgender women living in men's shelters.

Finally, some sense in the world!

Transgender and gender-nonconforming people are more likely to be homeless than the general population. The National Transgender Discrimination Survey's report on housing, to be released at the end of this year, showed that of the 6,560 people surveyed nationwide,19 percent of survey participants have experienced homelessness.
[…]
The survey found 19 percent of participants have experienced homelessness. Of that group, 29 percent were denied access to a shelter, 42 percent were "forced to live as the wrong gender to be allowed to stay in a shelter" and 47 percent decided to leave a shelter because of poor treatment. Twenty-five percent have been physically assaulted or attacked by resident or staff and 22 percent have been sexually assaulted by residents or staff.
[…]
Advocates say they have received fewer complaints of violence and harassment since the policy's implementation.

Here in Connecticut there are no policies, it is hit or miss. It all depends upon the whim of the person who is doing the intake. There is no state agency to set policies, it all boils down to the individual shelter and since most are run by religious organizations, the odds are slim that they will allow trans-women to shelter in a women’s homeless shelter. The results are that we find more trans-women under bridges or in abandon houses. When they are giving shelter and if they get harassed, it is usually the trans-woman, the victim, who is thrown out of the sheltet.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way as the article shows, lets work together to bring about change.