In recent months, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Trump administration has made big changes to how it handles housing rights for transgender people. These changes have raised concerns among civil rights groups and legal experts.
Although HUD says it still supports equal housing access, critics argue the administration is quietly pulling back important protections meant to help some of the most vulnerable people — especially transgender individuals.
What Is the Equal Access Rule?
The Equal Access Rule was first introduced during the Obama administration in 2012. It expanded the Fair Housing Act, which protects people from discrimination in housing, by making sure LGBTQ+ people — especially transgender people — were also protected.
In 2016, the rule was updated to cover transgender people needing help at federally funded homeless shelters, meaning shelters couldn’t deny them service based on their gender identity.
But now, the Trump administration is trying to roll those changes back, saying it wants to restore what it calls “biological truth” in government policies.
Housing Complaints by Transgender People Being Dropped
Several HUD lawyers have said that under the new direction, they’ve been told to pause investigations into complaints of gender identity discrimination. Some cases have even been closed because HUD claimed it had no legal power to handle them.
HUD hasn’t released how many cases it has dropped. However, a National Fair Housing Alliance report says there were at least 195 gender identity discrimination complaints in 2023. What happens to such cases now often depends on whether a person lives in a blue state (a state that has stronger local protections for LGBTQ+ people).
Homeless Shelters Caught in Confusion
HUD contracts with nonprofits that run shelters have also created confusion. Some parts of these agreements say that organizations should not promote “gender ideology”, while other parts say they must follow anti-discrimination laws.
In Memphis, Tennessee, a nonprofit called My Sistah’s House, which serves transgender people, is now preparing to handle more people without federal help, just to avoid these legal complications.
Shelters that do accept federal funds are starting to remove references to LGBTQ+ services from their websites, worried they’ll lose funding if they don’t follow the unclear new rules.
What Happens to the Equal Access Rule?
HUD has already paused enforcement of the Equal Access Rule and is planning to revise the policy, though officials haven’t explained what changes are being made. In 2020, Trump’s team tried to remove rules that required shelters to accept transgender people, but the effort failed.
Now, with Trump back in power, advocates fear a much bigger rollback is coming — one that could completely remove the right of transgender people to access safe housing and emergency shelters.