1. United States
2. N.J.
3. Letter

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Equal Access Rule ensures that everyone can access federally funded housing and homeless services without discrimination. Since 2016, it has required HUD-funded shelters to house people according to their gender identity, a policy that has been vital to the safety of transgender and gender-expansive communities. The Trump administration has proposed eliminating the Equal Access Rule and forcing HUD-funded providers to discriminate and deny access to services based on “biological sex.” By requiring dehumanizing documentation checks to “establish a person’s sex”, this proposal would intensify disparities, reduce trust in housing providers, and increase unsheltered homelessness, all of which place additional burdens on local communities and their budgets. Congress should demand that HUD preserve the Equal Access Rule and repeal this harmful proposal.