Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Know Your Housing Rights

A week from today I am giving a presentation at the Legislative Office Building on LGBT housing discrimination. There is a symposium there sponsored by the state’s Commission on Human Rights Opportunities (CHRO), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights and I have been asked to give a 15 to 25 minute presentation (Details of the symposium are at the end of this post.). I will post my outline next Wednesday.

I just want to review some of our legal protections. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII covers workplace discrimination based on sex discrimination which the courts and the EEOC have ruled also protect gender identity in the workplace. Title IX covers sex discrimination in education and both the Department of Education and the Department of Justice have ruled that we are covered because discrimination based on gender identity is sex discrimination. Also the federal Fair Housing Act prohibits housing discrimination based on sex and HUD has also ruled that we are protected in any HUD financed housing. The proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) will not cover public accommodation, it only covers workplace discrimination.

There are no federal laws or proposed legislation that would cover us in public accommodation, currently only seventeen states, and the District of Columbia has protection for us in public accommodation. Massachusetts, the seventeen states, and the District of Columbia protect us in employment, and housing.

However, the problem with any protection whether it is for LGBT rights or aging or any of the other protected classes is you have to prove it and that is hard to do unless they are stupid and come out and say we didn’t hire you because you’re transgender. Also you have to be willing to file a claim and have your name out there as part of the public record.

SAVE THE DATE!

August 20, 2014

The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
The National Center for Lesbian Rights

Symposium on New State and Federal Protections Against LGBT Discrimination in Housing

Join CHRO, HUD, NCLR, and our community partners for a day of education about the rights of LGBTQ individuals to equal opportunity housing.

The program will include presentations on:

  • what constitutes housing discrimination
  • the impact of housing discrimination on LGBTQ persons and communities
  • protections provided by federal programs with a focus on the new protections under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s LGBT Equal Access Rule
  • protections provided by Connecticut State Law
  • the impact of the Equal Access Rule on homeless LGBTQ individuals
  • resources for protecting LGBTQ rights to housing
  • the rights and obligations of housing providers and lenders

We hope to see you there!

When: Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Where: Legislative Office Building
300 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, CT 06106
Time: 9:00a.m. - 4:00p.m.

Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities 
25 Sigourney Street Hartford, CT 06106
860-541-3423
http://www.ct.gov/chro

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20410
202-708-1112
http://www.hud.gov

National Center for Lesbian Rights
1100 H Street, NW Suite 540
Washington, DC 20005
202-734-3545
http://www.nclrights.org

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