During the last summer of his presidency, Barack Obama enacted a rule through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that required federally funded housing providers to use a person’s “gender identity” for placement.
Federally funded housing providers include single-sex homeless shelters. The rule allows men pretending to be women inside women’s homeless shelters.
Imagine a battered woman has fled her husband or boyfriend. She entered a women’s homeless shelter for safety, and the person in the next bed is a man who decided last week to start wearing dresses.
Or a woman who sought safety after being raped. She enters the shelter and realizes she has to share a restroom with men — in a women’s place of refuge — if she chooses to stay.
Men may not understand why all of this is a problem.
Some feminists hated this rule as much as the rest of us. They asked Dr. Ben Carson, HUD secretary during the first Trump administration, to reverse the Obama administration’s ridiculous and dangerous rule.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January 2025, which states that “sex” is not a synonym for “gender identity” in federal programs. Scott Turner, HUD secretary, issued an order that put a stop to pending or future enforcement of Obama’s HUD rule.
America First Legal (AFL) on Tuesday asked HUD to end the rule altogether. The organization said that it “exceeds HUD’s statutory authority and conflicts with President Trump’s Executive Order 14168, ‘Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.'”
From AFL’s petition: (emphasis added):
HUD also failed to consider the reliance interests of faith-based shelter operators and other CPD grantees who had structured their programs and facilities to serve single-sex populations. Where a rule displaces settled practices and expectations, the APA requires the agency to take such reliance into account and to offer a reasoned explanation for proceeding nonetheless. HUD did not do so.
“Women should not be forced into situations that compromise their sense of security,” said Alice Kass, AFL attorney. “Additionally, this rule places an impossible burden on shelter providers, preventing them from best protecting those in their care. HUD must stand up for women and formally remove this rule.”
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