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New bill would bar housing bias against gay, trans people

Task Force hopes Fair & Inclusive Housing Rights Act ‘gains momentum’

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Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, said she hopes the Fair & Inclusive Housing Rights Act 'gains momentum.' (DC Agenda photo by Michael Key)

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill Thursday that would amend the landmark Fair Housing Act of 1968 to include a ban on housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Nadler introduced the measure, the Fair & Inclusive Housing Rights Act of 2010, hours before he held a hearing to discuss possible changes for the Fair Housing Act.

ā€œHousing discrimination remains a persistent problem in our country,ā€ he said in opening remarks at the hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, which he chairs. ā€œWhile we would like to think that housing discrimination is an artifact of the past, we know it is not.”

Nadler and several witnesses who testified at the hearing, including Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, praised the Fair Housing Act for making important progress in fighting housing-related discrimination against other minorities.

The act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson, prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing on the basis of race, color, religion and national origin. Congress amended the law in 1974 to include protections based on gender. In 1988, it added protections based on a personā€™s disability and family status.

ā€œDiscrimination [in housing] on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity are perfectly legal in many areas, and people are regularly denied a place to live simply because of that status,ā€ Nadler said at the hearing.

He noted that Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, joined him in introducing the Fair & Inclusive Housing Rights Act, which Nadler said would ban housing related discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

The three-page bill is focused solely on expanding the Fair Housing Act to include protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

ā€œWeā€™re very pleased that he introduced this today and, with our testimony and the support of others, we hope it gains momentum,ā€ Carey said after the hearing. ā€œThere are a number of members of Congress who will be quite supportive of this.ā€

In her testimony, Carey cited preliminary findings of a Task Force survey on transgender discrimination showing that 11 percent of transgender respondents reported being evicted and 19 percent reported becoming homeless due to incidents of discrimination.

ā€œFor us, the pursuit of the American dream, including home ownership, is a risky proposition,ā€ she said. ā€œWhen our sexual orientation or gender identity is known, either because we offer it willingly or a landlord, realtor or lender is made aware by other means, there is potential for outright hostility, property damage and even physical violence.

ā€œStudies show that in renting apartments, when callers described themselves as gay or lesbian, apartments are more likely to be described as unavailable.”

Nadlerā€™s bill comes at a time when Capitol Hill insiders expect the House to soon vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Insiders, including LGBT activists, say ENDA has a good chance of clearing the House but its prospects in the Senate are less certain.

Other people who testifyied at the hearing said they supported adding sexual orientation and gender identity protections to the Fair Housing Act, and also called for better enforcement of act’s existing protections.

The other witnesses included Shanna Smith, president of the National Fair Housing Alliance; Barabara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Kenneth Marcus, visiting professor of Baruch College School of Public Affairs; John Relman, founder and director of Relman & Dane; and Okianer Christian Dark, an associate dean and professor of law at the Howard University School of Law.

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Federal Government

Education Department moves to end support for trans students

Mental health services among programs that are in jeopardy

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The U.S. Department of Education headquarters in D.C. (Photo courtesy of the GSA/Education Department)

An email sent to employees at the U.S. Department of Education on Friday explains that “programs, contracts, policies, outward-facing media, regulations, and internal practices” will be reviewed and cut in cases where they ā€œfail to affirm the reality of biological sex.ā€

The move, which is of a piece with President Donald Trump’s executive orders restricting transgender rights, jeopardizes the future of initiatives at the agency like mental health services and support for students experiencing homelessness.

Along with external-facing work at the agency, the directive targets employee programs such as those administered by LGBTQ resource groups, in keeping with the Trump-Vance administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government.

In recent weeks, federal agencies had begun changing their documents, policies, and websites for purposes of compliance with the new administration’s first executive action targeting the trans community, ā€œDefending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.ā€

For instance, the Education Department had removed a webpage offering tips for schools to better support homeless LGBTQ youth, noted ProPublica, which broke the news of the “sweeping” changes announced in the email to DOE staff.

According to the news service, the directive further explains the administration’s position that ā€œThe deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology ā€” whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms ā€” negated the civil rights of biological females and fostered distrust of our federal institutions.”

A U.S. Senate committee hearing will be held Thursday for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, who has been criticized by LGBTQ advocacy groups. GLAAD, for instance, notes that she helped to launch and currently chairs the board of a conservative think tank that “has campaigned against policies that support transgender rights in education.”

NBC News reported on Tuesday that Trump planned to issue an executive order this week to abolish the Education Department altogether.

While the president and his conservative allies in and outside the administration have repeatedly expressed plans to disband the agency, doing so would require approval from Congress.

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State Department

Protesters demand US fully restore PEPFAR funding

Activists blocked intersection outside State Department on Thursday

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HIV/AIDS activists block an intersection outside the State Department on Feb. 6, 2025. They were demanding the Trump-Vance administration to fully restore PEPFAR funding. (Photo courtesy of Housing Works)

Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday protested outside the State Department and demanded U.S. officials fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.

The activists ā€” members of Housing Works, Health GAP, and the Treatment Action Group ā€” blocked an intersection for an hour. Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell told the Washington Blade that police did not make any arrests.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other ā€œlife-saving humanitarian assistanceā€ programs to continue to operate during the freeze.

The Blade on Wednesday reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding.

ā€œPEPFAR is a program that has saved 26 million lives and changed the trajectory of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic,” said Housing Works CEO Charles King in a press release. “The recent freeze on its funding is not just a bureaucratic decision; it is a death sentence for millions who rely on these life-saving treatments. We cannot allow decades of progress to be undone. The U.S. must immediately reaffirm its commitment to global health and human dignity by restoring PEPFAR funding.” 

ā€œWe demand Secretary Rubio immediately reverse his deadly, illegal stop-work order, which has already disrupted life-saving HIV services worldwide,” added Russell. “Any waiver process is too little, too late.”

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The White House

Trump bars trans women and girls from sports

The administration reversed course on the Biden-Harris policy on Title IX

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President Donald Trump (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued another executive order taking aim at the transgender community, this time focusing on eligibility for sports participation.

In a signing ceremony for ā€œKeeping Men Out of Womenā€™s Sports” in the East Room of the White House, the president proclaimed “With this executive order, the war on womenā€™s sports is over.”

Despite the insistence by Trump and Republicans that trans women and girls have a biological advantage in sports over cisgender women and girls, the research has been inconclusive, at best.

A study in the peer reviewed Sports Medicine journal found ā€œno direct or consistent researchā€ pointing to this conclusion. A different review in 2023 found that post-pubertal differences are ā€œreduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy.ā€

Other critics of efforts to exclude trans student athletes have pointed to the small number of people who are impacted. Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, testified last year that fewer than 10 of the NCAA’s 522,000+ student athletes identify as trans.

The Trump-Vance administration has reversed course from the Biden-Harris administration’s policy on Title IX rules barring sex-based discrimination.

ā€œIf youā€™re going to have womenā€™s sports, if youā€™re going to provide opportunities for women, then they have to be equally safe, equally fair, and equally private opportunities, and so that means that youā€™re going to preserve womenā€™s sports for women,” a White House official said prior to the issuance of the order.

Former President Joe Biden’s Title IX rules, which went into effect last year, clarified that pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The White House official indicated that the administration will consider additional guidance, regulations, and interpretations of Title IX, as well as exploring options to handle noncompliance by threatening federal funding for schools and education programs.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump ā€œdoes expect the Olympic Committee and the NCAA to no longer allow men to compete in womenā€™s sports.ā€

One of the first legislative moves by the new Congress last month was House Republicans’ passage of the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which would ban trans women and girls from participating in competitive athletics.

The bill is now before the U.S. Senate, where Republicans have a three-seat majority but would need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster.

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