Arguing that battered women in shelters should be protected from male predators who claim they are female, the non-profit legal group Liberty Counsel is praising a rule change proposed by the Trump administration.
WND reports,
It would eliminate an Obama administration rule in 2016 requiring that shelters allow people to enter based on their “gender identity.”
The Obama rule turned shelters for the homeless and for abused women into a battleground for the transgender-rights agenda.
The Trump administration now has proposed a rule to fix the problem.
It would protect vulnerable women and children by letting federally funded shelters consider a range of factors, such as biological sex, in deciding whether to provide lodging to certain people.
The rule is set to take effect next month.
Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver commended the Trump administration for protecting women and children through the new HUD rule.
He said the current rule “does not consider the practical concerns of shelter providers who serve vulnerable clients who are seeking refuge from violence and abusive relationships.”
“Women and girls are entitled to privacy and protection from predators who ‘identify as females’ with the intent of committing sexual assault,” he said.
The new rule allows shelters with bathrooms and sleeping quarters separated by biological sex to establish policy that considers “privacy, safety, practical concerns, religious beliefs, any relevant considerations under civil rights and nondiscrimination authorities, the individual’s sex as reflected in official government documents, as well as the gender which a person identifies with” before allowing people entry.
Liberty Counsel said Obama’s 2016 Equal Access Rule “mandates that federally funded single-sex homeless shelters admit residents based on their stated gender identity.”
The new rule provides “that grant recipients, subrecipients, owners, operators, managers and providers under HUD programs which permit single-sex or sex-segregated facilities (such as bathrooms or temporary, emergency shelters and other buildings and facilities with physical limitations or configurations that require and are permitted to have shared sleeping quarters or bathing facilities) may establish a policy, consistent with state and local law, by which such shelter provider considers an individual’s sex for the purposes of determining accommodation within such shelters and for purposes of determining sex for admission to any facility or portion thereof.”
