Housing Discrimination Protections

A transgender apartment-hunter thought he’d found a perfect place in Baltimore. But when he showed up, the woman raised the rent by $100 over the advertised price, said she would only take cash and was clearly uncomfortable.

Last year, the Task Force joined forces with the National Center for Transgender Equality to survey 6,456 transgender people. An alarming 11 percent reported having been evicted because of their gender identity and 19 percent said they’d become homeless, the survey found. And while 68 percent of Americans own a home, only 32 percent of transgender Americans have achieved that level of security in their living arrangements.

Of course, gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans are also frequently the victims of housing discrimination. Using testers posing as would-be renters or buyers, the Michigan Fair Housing Centers reported in 2007 that 27 percent of same-sex couples were treated differently: “We found differences in rental rates, level of encouragement and application fees that favored the male/female test teams. We also saw behavior bordering on sexual harassment directed toward testers posing as same-sex couples,” the group noted . . .

Likewise, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported in 2001 that 34 percent of lesbians, gays or bisexuals said “they or someone they know” had experienced discrimination while trying to rent an apartment or buy a house . . .

Nothing in federal law prohibits refusing to rent or sell to those of us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. And as Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, recently stressed, “Housing discrimination remains a persistent problem in our country.”

Nadler recently introduced legislation to amend the Fair Housing Act to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the protected categories. Enacted in 1968 to outlaw housing discrimination based on race, color, religion or national original, the measure has gradually been expanded to also cover sex, disability and familial status. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., is co-sponsoring Nadler’s drive for a much-needed upgrade.

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