A Christian Homeless Shelter is Suing Over the Right to Reject Trans People
By Sarahbeth Caplin, January 16, 2019

The same conservative legal group that said it was okay for a baker to deny services to a gay couple is suing the city of Anchorage, Alaska over a Christian-run women’s shelter that wants to deny help to transgender clients.

Alliance Defending Freedom says Hope Center should have the ability to say no to trans women who seek their help because the other people there “shouldn’t be forced to sleep or disrobe in the same room as a man.”

Specifically, ADF is targeting a non-discrimination ordinance in Anchorage that led to city officials investigating the center after a trans person was turned away.

Alliance attorney Ryan Tucker said many women at the shelter are survivors of violence and allowing biological men would be highly traumatic for them. He told U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason that women have told shelter officials that if biological men are allowed to spend the night alongside them, “they would rather sleep in the woods,” even in extreme cold like the city has experienced this week with temperatures hovering around zero.

Well, that’s their problem, isn’t it?

Domestic violence survivors who are fleeing an abusive situation don’t often have many options when it comes to temporary housing. Trans people shouldn’t have to pay the price for their internalized prejudice.

To use their emotional fragility as an excuse to discriminate against trans people is a low blow.

To be fair, there were other relevant circumstances surrounding this case. Shelter officials say they didn’t actually reject a trans person; rather, the trans woman who showed up was “injured, inebriated, and past check-in time,” so they sent her to a local hospital. Even if they would have rejected a trans person, they didn’t in this case. Furthermore, they say, homeless shelters are exempt from the nondiscrimination ordinance.

Rather than sticking to those talking points, though, ADF insists the shelter shouldn’t have to accommodate trans people.

As Anchorage was voting on whether or not to strike transgender people from the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance, an attorney for the shelter told a local newspaper that they would never admit a “biological male” into the facility despite how the vote turned out.

The measure was defeated at the ballot box.

Does the shelter plan on doing mandatory genital inspections before allowing people in? Seems like a great way to ensure that no one shows up at their doors…