The rule also specifies the term “family,” as used in HUD policies, includes LGBT families.
“Today, I am proud to announce a new Equal Access to Housing Rule that says clearly and unequivocally that LGBT individuals and couples have the right to live where they choose,” said Secretary Shaun Donovan (right) at the National Conference on LGBT Equality this weekend.
It’s worth noting the new policy also protects transgender Americans, who are at particular risk for housing discrimination. A survey conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force showed that that 19% of trans people had been refused a home or apartment and 11% had been evicted because of their gender identity or expression.
“We often hear from [trans] people who are experiencing discrimination in housing. These new rules will strengthen our ability to assist transgender people in advocating for their basic human rights,” says Danny Kirchoff, a lawyer at the Transgender Law Center. “And it will reassure them that our government has their back. This is about giving people the dignity and respect we all deserve.”
Source: Transgender Law Center. Photos: Matt Carman, Justin Ide/Harvard University
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Triple S
How is it legal for people to deny others a residence because of being gay or being a transgender person? So you could basically be homeless or on the verge of being homeless and they could STILL deny you a house?
It doesn’t make any sense!
Phantom
@Triple S: Under this law, everyone is protected except age and sexual orientation. The landlord can also denied mental handicapped person if he is danger to himself or others.
Gay Bacon
and this can all be over turned if we don’t vote. Everyone including the gay community needs to recheck their states voting rules especially those of us in Republican dominated states. I randomly googled it and found two links that I liked. The first is user friendly and the second is from the ACLU so I know it’s legit. VOTE
http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections-campaigns/voter-id-state-requirements.aspx
http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_voting-rights/know-your-voting-rights-state-state
B
No. 1 · Triple S wrote, “How is it legal for people to deny others a residence because of being gay or being a transgender person?”
It’s legal the same way it was legal to deny housing to Blacks – until the civil rights laws were passed in the 1960s. Being legal doesn’t mean it’s right. Usually a class of people are not explicitly covered by civil rights legislation until the legislature is convinced that there is a real problem, and (of course) until the level of discrimination in society as a whole drops enough that legislators won’t feel that doing the right thing is political suicide.
RickStrandlof
@GoProud shoud be ALL up in a fit over this. cause ya know, Barack Obama has been a diaster for gay and lesbian Americans or something.
xander
The new regs also include language about people who are “perceived” to be LGBT, which is important, because people who don’t fit gender stereotypes and / or do not self-identify as LGBT will still be protected
That, of course is causing tongue-lashings on the fundy / righty sites, because, as we all know, so many people will ‘pretend’ to be Queer just for the housing bennies,..Lol.
Me
Obama’s indefensible record on Civil Rights (as well as the numerous cases listed by other objective contributors here who are not Obot shills) clearly expose Obama for the betrayer and homophobic a-hole that he really is. This is the latest of just another ploy on his short list of little “pre-election” temporary “fixes” in order to pull the veil over everyone’s eyes in the GLBT community regarding what that scumbag Obama did as he spat into our collective faces (on DADT, DOMA, ENDA, Uniting Foreign Partners Act, etc.) for his first three years in office.
This is just a weak bone to throw to what Obama regards as the poodles in our community which the DEMS expect to act like obedient little lapdogs in the next election. How soon some forget that when Obama went to that GLAAD fundraiser in NY on the eve of the pro-Marriage vote, Obama grabbed the money and just ran away with it without even mentioning our civil rights struggle for full equality — marriage rights especially, nor any real commitment to employment anti-discrimination legislation, foreign partnership rights, et al.
As has been stated before, what did Obama do in trying to uphold the horrors of DADT and DOMA that Bush wouldn’t have done? Obama is not defending DOMA now only because he was defeated in the federal courts several times and ONLY because the Dems lost control of the HOUSE of Representatives when the DEMS pissed-off liberal base stayed home in droves. On DADT, Obama lost several times in federal court, before a weakened repeal was piecemealed together — but only after anti-discrimination language was removed from the bill, over Nancy Pelosi’s objections, at Obama’s insistence.
Furthermore, if Obama would have thrown in the towel on DOMA when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker, then DOMA would have been long dead by now and the GLBT community would be much better off as well as tens of thousands of us would finally be receiving federal recognition and federal protections, plus hard-earned benefits, for ourselves and our families.
Still, there are so many people in the GLBT community who like to live in denial and try to pretend that Obama did nothing to harm us over the last three years, and anyone who points the truth out is some kind of stealth Republican. How pathetic. There is nothing worst than a blind zealot. Obots can shill all they want for that backstabber in the White House but facts are facts. The DEMS with NEVER change unless you hold them accountable, and punish those who betray you.
As the old saying goes: The Republicans fear their base, while the Democrats despise their base.
That will never change, an neither will our civil rights be taken seriously unless there is a price to be paid at the polls for betraying us. Leaders in the Black Civil Rights movement knew that; women’s rights groups know that; Jewish foreign policy groups know that; every so-called “special interest” group knows that, except for the GLBT community who just puts out on the first date and then acts surprised when no one respects them in the morning.
Me
Correction: The DEMS will NEVER change unless you hold them accountable, and punish those who betray you.