The Department of Housing and Urban Development is set to roll back an Obama-era rule that requires single-sex homeless shelters to accommodate clients based on their gender identity. Under HUD’s proposed new rule, workers at single-sex shelters may consider someone’s biological sex, instead of how they self-identify, when making accommodation decisions.
 
The proposed rule allows shelters to, ‘‘determine an individual’s sex based on a good-faith belief that an individual seeking access . . . is not of the sex, as defined in the single-sex facility’s policy, which the facility accommodates.” Any shelter that denies access to a transgender client must recommend the client to another shelter. A shelter may still choose to serve transgender people, but if it does, the shelter must do so consistently.
 
Alliance Defending Freedom’s Senior Counsel Kate Anderson said that the proposed HUD rule allows shelters to align with their religious foundations, which may conflict with admitting transgender people into a same-sex shelter. “There is no need to force shelters to violate their faith or impose a blanket federal policy that forces vulnerable women to share space with men who claim a female identity,” said Anderson. 
 
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