Connecticut Is Ahead Of The Curve

We have been training homeless shelter about trans inclusion for over a year now.

Homeless Shelters Could Soon Become More Welcoming To Trans Residents
New proposed regulations would ensure transgender people can stay in shelters matching their gender identity.
Huffington Post
By Sarah Grossman
August 22, 2016

Shelters may soon be safer and more welcoming to homeless people who are transgender.

New rules proposed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) would allow transgender people to stay in the homeless shelters that correspond to the gender they identify with.

“Anybody who is seeking services at a homeless shelter is already in crisis or in need ― and it’s important for them to be treated with dignity and respect,”David Stacy, of LGBT advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign, told The Huffington Post. “A transgender person should have their gender identity recognized and treated appropriately ― and that’s what these regulations do.”
[…]
Current regulations on housing protections for LGBT people were established in 2012 and prohibit shelters from turning away someone because they are transgender, but those rules don’t explicitly say you have to house people according to their gender identity, according to Stacy.

The new proposed regulations build off guidelines that HUD issued to shelters last year specifying that transgender people should be allowed access to shelters based on the gender they identify with. But while guidelines are informal ― and it’s up to shelters whether to follow them ― the new regulations would be mandatory and enforceable, according to Stacy. 

Our training covers the 2012 regulations, our slides list the regulations…

• HUD published  the Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity final rule (Equal Access Rule) (77 FR 5662) on February 3, 2012

• The Equal Access Rule requires that HUD’s housing programs be made available to individuals and families without regard to actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status

• It prohibits owners and administrators of HUD-assisted or HUD-insured housing, approved lenders in an FHA mortgage insurance program, and any other recipients or subrecipients of HUD funds from inquiring about sexual orientation or gender identity to determine eligibility for HUD-assisted or HUD-insured housing

• It provides a limited exception for inquiries about the sex of an individual to determine eligibility for temporary, emergency, shelters with shared sleeping areas or bathrooms, or to determine the number of bedrooms to which a household may be entitled

• HUD has subsequently determined it is necessary to provide additional guidance on how best to provide shelter to transgender persons in a single-sex facility. HUD is continuing to evaluate whether setting a national policy through rulemaking is necessary.

[…]
If HUD finds a recipient or subrecipient has failed to meet program requirements, HUD may take actions such as those described in 24 CFR 576.501 (Enforcement) or 24 CFR 576.540 (Deobligation of Funds[translated from bureaucratic talk... take back the monies]).

Of course you know that the conservatives are all up in a tizzy over the proposed regulation

The proposed regulations have provoked backlash from some conservative organizations.

“Why do you have to force other people to feel really uncomfortable, and in some cases unsafe, just to make your political point?” Tim Wildmon, president of the conservative American Family Association, told The Hill.

Our training also points out that it is behavior that is important, if someone is causing a problem then there are the one who should be dealt with, not the victim.

LGBT advocates do not agree that the safety of others would be threatened by transgender people accessing spaces corresponding with their gender identity.

“There’s not a real problem here,” Stacy said. “Any person can pose a threat to others, and nothing in these regulations says you can’t deal with appropriate threats. If there are concerns about someone that are not based on factors related to their gender, but based on relevant factors, such as them being violent, those criteria still apply, and they apply equally to all people.”

Our training program came about because a trans woman was placed in a men’s shelter and was attacked by another resident and she was the one who was thrown out of the shelter on a cold January night at 11 o’clock in the dark of the night.