Opinion Op-Ed: Trump’s Housing Department wants to make transgender discrimination legal again. Don’t let it Hundreds participate in a Transgender Day of Remembrance protest on Nov. 20, 2015, in West Hollywood. Hundreds gather in West Hollywood to participate in the Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20, 2015, and to protest violence against the transgender community. (Los Angeles Times) By Julián Castro, -- lasting economic impact. This is particularly true for transgender Americans, who are disproportionately afflicted by poverty and homelessness even in better years. But instead of strengthening support for the trans community, the Trump administration has taken steps to weaken it. In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, under the leadership of Secretary Ben Carson, proposed a dangerous new rule that would allow taxpayer-funded emergency shelters to discriminate against transgender people. By permitting shelters to serve people on the basis of “biological sex” without regard for gender identity, this rule would explicitly grant single-gender shelters permission to close their doors to transgender people experiencing homelessness. Mixed-gender shelters would be allowed to force transgender people to access services based on the gender they were assigned at birth instead of their gender identity. This places them at increased risk of gender-based violence and sexual -- Advertisement Transgender people face devastating rates of homelessness across the United States. Nearly one-third of respondents to the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey — a major accounting of the experiences of trans Americans — reported being homeless at some point. One in eight said they had been homeless within the previous year. The survey results paint an even more dire picture for Black trans women, a group especially vulnerable to abuse, violence and HIV. More than 50 percent of respondents said they had experienced homelessness -- being homeless within the previous year. If this rule is adopted, it will endanger trans people. Many of those experiencing homelessness will not seek shelter, fearing discrimination (which nearly 30% of transgender people seeking shelter have experienced) and potential violence (22% of trans people experiencing homelessness report being sexually assaulted by shelter staff or residents). Those who do seek shelter will be more likely to be turned away or harassed for who they are. In the context of COVID-19, this means that trans people experiencing homelessness will be at a heightened risk of falling ill, since shelters are many communities’ best access point to the safe, -- Enforcing equal access to shelter is the least we can do for transgender people in our communities. They are ordinary people whose lives should never be used as a political wedge issue in cynical campaigns that try to turn neighbors against one another. Rather than thinking of new ways to make trans people’s lives more difficult, the Trump administration should be developing and executing strategies that build on the progress made under the Obama administration, which dramatically reduced homelessness for LGBTQ+ people, veterans and families. The federal government should not target the rights of trans people. Instead, as a society we should be dedicated to helping the trans community, which has historically experienced social and economic harm because of who they are. All too often, American society has failed to provide crucial and necessary support for the estimated 1.4 million transgender Americans — including one in 50 teenagers — who have lived authentically despite great obstacles. That cannot be the case once again. The Housing Saves -- Donald Trump Jr. (C) and Eric Trump, at the official opening of his Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland. Donald Trump shook up his White House transition team Friday by appointing running mate Mike Pence as its chairman and naming a cohort of Washington insiders -- along with three of his children