On Saturday the Obama Administration announced historic new federal rules that will strengthen housing discrimination protections for transgender and other LGBT people.

The new regulations were announced by Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan at the 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, and will be officially published this coming week.

The new rule prohibits owners and operators of federally-funded or federally-insured housing, as well as lenders offering federally-insured mortgages from discriminating based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The update also clarifies the definition of “family” to ensure that LGBT families are not excluded from HUD programs.

“If you are denying HUD housing to people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, actual or perceived, you’re discriminating, you’re breaking the law, and you will be held accountable. That’s what equal access means, and that’s what this rule is going to do,” said HUD Secretary Donovan in a statement.

HUD cited The National Transgender Discrimination Survey showing that 19% of transgender and gender non-conforming people had been refused a home or apartment and 11% had been evicted because of their gender identity or expression. The study also showed that 19% of transgender people have been homeless at some point in their lives, and 29% of those had been turned away from homeless shelters and a majority were harassed when they could get in to a shelter.

“Despite significant gains in securing basic rights for LGBT Americans
over the past decade, the quality of life for black gay and transgender
Americans has remained virtually unchanged,”  Aisha Moodie-Mills,
CAP Advisor on LGBT Policy and Racial Justice said in a statement.

“Marriage equality is vital
to overall progress, but marriage alone is not a silver bullet to reduce
the disparities black gay and transgender populations face.”

According to the report families headed by black
same-sex couples are more likely to raise their children in poverty,
black lesbians are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases, and
black gay and transgender youth are more likely to end up homeless and
living on the streets.

The report lays out policy recommendations for addressing economic insecurity, low education attainment and wellness disparities that could improve the lives of gay and transgender people of color.

On Thursday evening Colorlines.com’s very own news editor Jamilah King moderated a panel at the launch of CAP’s FIRE Initiative to discuss the new report. Watch the video of the panel below and visit the Center for American Progress to download the full report.

On Thursday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick held a ceremonial signing for H.3810, “An Act Relative To Gender Identity,” which now legally protects transgender individuals from discrimination in housing, education, employment and credit. The new law also provides additional civil rights and protections from hate crimes.

“No individual should face discrimination because of who they are,” Governor Patrick said in a press release. “This legislation gives Massachusetts the necessary tools to stop hate crimes against transgender people and to treat others fairly. I am proud to sign it.”

The transgender equal rights law will make Massachusetts the 16th state to treat transgender citizens as a protected class. The law modifies language in Massachusetts statute to protect all individuals from discrimination, regardless of gender identities. This change will create equal protections for transgender individuals seeking employment, housing, credit and education. There are approximately 33,000 transgender residents living in Massachusetts.

“The passage of this bill is going to make an immediate difference in the lives of the state’s transgender residents, who desperately need anti-discrimination protections in housing and employment. I have been so moved by the courage of constituents who’ve shared their stories with lawmakers and shown the critical need for these civil rights protections,” Massachusetts Representative Carl Sciortino said in a statement.

The bill was signed in to law late last year but Governor Patrick held the ceremonial signing at the state house this morning.

In 2004, Massachusetts became the sixth jurisdiction in the world (after the Netherlands, Belgium, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec) to legalize same-sex marriage. It was the first U.S. state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

This year was a bloody one for transgender women of color in Washington, D.C. In late July, Lashai McLean was shot to death 10 blocks away from the office of Transgender Health Empowerment in Northeast D.C. Just 11 days later–and one block away from the scene of McLean’s slaying–Tonya Harrell was shot at but escaped. And in April, Chloe Alexander Moore was physically assaulted by an off-duty police officer.

McLean, Harrell and Moore were just the most recent victims in a sustained pattern of anti-trans violence in the nation’s capitol. Coupled with the acute racial disparities detailed in the landmark national survey “Injustice at Every Turn,”, D.C.’s transgender women of color are carrying the heaviest of loads.

Because violence and terror and discrimination isn’t the sum total of people’s lives, I’ve asked a range of transgender women of color living in D.C. to tell their own stories. I wanted to know everything–the experiences they’ve had with employment, their families, men, housing, girlfriends, spirituality and dance floors. I wanted to hear about how they survive–and thrive. Below is the first in a series of as-told-tos. The first brave soul to answer my nosy questions and let me edit her responses into a narrative is Danielle King.

A longtime activist, King is the development manager of the Washington, D.C.-based National Center for Transgender Equality and the founder of the National Aurora Campaign (more on that below). Ms. King also serves as vice president of D.C. Black Pride, which was one of the first black LGBT pride festival and remains one of the nation’s best-known. She lives in the Chocolate City with her shih tzu’s, Mimi and Puccini.

Here is Danielle King’s story in her words:

Before I began to transition in 2003, no one was really talking about gender. Being transgender was still associated with drag queens on the “Jerry Springer” show or with prostitutes. That was it.

We certainly didn’t discuss it in my Catholic household in Camden, N.J. It took me until after I graduated from college at 22 to learn about and express my gender identity.

During the first five years of my transition, I had to educate my family. I would wage these personal wars with them, constantly telling them, “It is unacceptable to use inappropriate gender pronouns with me, to not refer to me as Danielle.” After all, my middle name has always been Danielle! (My father contended that it was misspelled, but my mother told the real truth–how she’d carried me with the hopes of having a girl. But upon learning that I was born male, she made it my middle name.)

Lost and Found

Eventually, I found a support system on the street, in gay clubs and in the ballroom scene. Folks I met there would say, “Yes, you can be who you are, but maybe you want to consider prosthetics or silicone injections to complete the look.” It was common knowledge that many of them would resort to stealing in order to finance the beauty they’d obtained.

I would also meet these very attractive black transgender women who were prostituting themselves. I didn’t engage in it myself, but I would hang out with them on the street corner to learn from them and to develop closer relationships with my peers.

I’m not trying to create a grim picture; this is just the way that they knew how to survive. Only out of fear did I not choose these options. It wasn’t because I had more self-worth than them.

Since then, I have seen many of my peers die because they lacked healthy, legal support systems that allowed them to grow into their womanhood. That’s the greatest motivator for me. It’s why I started the National Aurora Campaign, a nonprofit that links transgender people of color with one another so that we live longer, healthier lives. It’s been a slow process–definitely a labor of love. But one day it will create a network and sisterhood for black transgender women the way the Deltas or the Alpha Kappa Alphas do.

Modern Day Lynchings

To me, mentorship is a matter of life and death for us. I know only one or two transgender women of color who have reached old age. HIV/AIDS is still very prevalent in our community. Many of us are living in lower-income communities. We’re trying to put food on the table and pay to transition. We’re not pursuing higher education. It’s almost a setup for poverty.

Violence is also a huge issue. African American youth in Compton, in the Bronx, in Camden are just catching it. I had a cousin, a Crip, who got shot, retaliated and ended up being killed and dumped in a cemetery. Amidst this kind of violence, we’re seeing young black transwomen being targeted.

When a funny, beautiful woman like Lashay McLean is getting shot in the damn back, and when someone as wonderful and promising as NaNa Boo Mack is being stabbed to death in broad daylight only blocks from a drop-in center for transgender youth, these aren’t murders. They’re lynchings.

The difference is we’re not acknowledging these lynchings within the black community. Black clergy are not standing up in the pulpit and speaking out, and trans activists are not working together effectively. We’re not holding people accountable.

And there’s a lack of mentorship, of older black trans people saying to young black trans people, “No! It’s not acceptable for you to be in the streets and put yourself at risk. It’s not OK for you to skip school in the daytime and prostitute at night.”

We’re engaging in sex work, as a form of economic survival, but also as a form of validation. We have got to address this. We have got to talk about what it’s like getting up in the morning, catching the train or bus to school or work and that ride is tense because you’re the subject of giggles and whispers. (My friend Tiana calls this the “judgment hour.”)

Or if you are passable, how you’re still not well received in your community. But then you have a sexual experience with Rahim from next door. He’s telling you you’re good enough and he’ll also pay. Suddenly you’re a commodity. You’re wanted. We sometimes glorify that, but I compare that pseudo-validation to the high that comes with crack cocaine. It puts us in situations where there is greater violence.

What’s Race Got to Do With It?

I’m not saying that transgender people of other races don’t go through these things. But I think inequalities that come with being a person of color are only amplified when you add the transgender experience. So it’s not only that we don’t have enough support systems in place, it’s that there are systems in place that perpetuate inequality.

Also, it seems like communities of color are just more vocal about putting you in a box. People almost demand an answer. They’ll say things like, ‘If you’re gay, you’re gay!” I think that’s one of the reasons that many of us transition early–to comply with those internal and external pressures. Economics is also a factor. There’s such an urgency to transition with success and assimilate into society so you can get a normal job and you don’t have to live this underground life. Time is literally working against you.

Meanwhile, it seems that our white counterparts transition later in life. They tend to be more established, have their education and the money to transition. Also, if you’re, say, a white transgender woman, white, male privilege hasn’t automatically left you.

This makes me think about how Tyra Hunter was hit by a car and died because the paramedics paused to laugh at her when they realized she was transgender. I think about how the hospital refused her care. Had she been white, I truly believe they would have been too fearful of a lawsuit to behave this way.

Support, Self-Love and How to Be Beautiful

Despite all of the grim reports, I am encouraged. Today my church, Covenant Baptist UCC, is my support system. It is full of phenomenal, well-educated people who have gone to bat for LGBT issues and believe everyone has the right to be who they are.

We’re seeing more and more influential transgender people of color like writer Janet Mock, Isis King from “America’s Top Model” or my friend Dr. A. Elliot, an African American transgender woman who practices medicine here in Washington, D.C. We have social justice organizations like the National Center for Transgender Equality and health groups Transgender Health Empowerment and blogs like TransGriot. We’re more visible and we’re talking about how our peers are dying because they’re transgender.

And for the first time in my life, I feel like the African American trans community is beginning to work together; technology has helped us with that. I also think we’re much kinder to ourselves. We got our start in ballroom culture, which is all about being passable, pretty and fierce. But I think our collective understanding of beauty has become wider and more inclusive.

Personally speaking, I feel a sense of freedom. I’ve undergone this journey and I feel more comfortable in my skin than I ever have. I no longer concern myself with being the most passable woman. I used to worry about that a lot. Now I just try to be the best woman I can be. I can say that I’ve undergone a shift in my mentality. I now realize that basing womanhood on being passable devalues other women. I assume that most people know that I’m transgender and I’m OK with people knowing. I’m proud of my experiences. Most importantly, I love myself.

+++

Editor’s note: For more on the intersection of race and LGBT politics, check out “Better Together,” a report from the Applied Research Center, which publishes Colorlines.com.

In California, where one in four transgender people earn wages below the poverty level and trans folk of color are up to a third poorer than their white counterparts, two important anti-discrimination bills have become law.

Signed on Monday, the new Gender Nondiscrimination Act (AB 887) carves out a specific category for “gender identity and expression” in the existing law against discrimination at work, school, the doctor’s office, housing, and public spaces. Transgender people were already protected from, say, being fired or evicted for coming out, but according to the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, many didn’t know their rights.

The Vital Statistics Modernization Act (AB 433), also passed on Monday, eliminates demeaning hoops that transgender people have to jump through to update their birth certificates and get a court-ordered gender change. The Transgender Law Center is one of three organizations that led the push for these changes. Program manager Maceo Persson explains how Cali’s trans folk will benefit.

Let’s start with the AB 433, the ID law. Explain what the obstacles were.

Before the Vital Statistics Modernization Act, people could do a legal gender change but it was a very intimidating, outmoded process instituted in the 1970s. It was almost like getting a legal name change: You’d fill out a form, get a court date and stand before a judge to state why you wanted to do a gender change. But then the judge–not your doctor–would get to decide whether you’d undergone ‘clinically appropriate treatment’ to be your authentic self. AB 433 helps ensure that that decision stays between you and your doctor. Transitioning is a personal and medical process. AB 433 puts judges out of the business of making medical decisions; now they just verify that you’re undergoing treatment so you can get the ID you need.

How will this impact immigrants, particularly those seeking asylum because they’re transgender?

Well, [many] transgender people immigrate to California so they can be their true self. When people come here and apply for asylum, they [usually] have a one-year [review] period. This law allows them to apply for a legal gender change simultaneously. It also streamlines the process overall because it conforms to the same standards that apply to changing your gender on your passport. You’re less likely to end up having a bunch of different standards for establishing your gender, and you’re less likely to deal with the discrimination and harassment you get when you don’t have consistent ID.

Talk about the basic non-discrimination law, AB 887. If transgender people had rights, why did you need to spell it out?

Because gender identification and expression weren’t listed on, say, the worker protection posters you see in the kitchen at your job, or in the equal opportunity clause of your lease agreement, people didn’t understand that they’re weren’t allowed to discriminate. We kept getting calls from trans and gender nonconforming people who had looked at their workplace posters or the nondiscrimination notices at their school and were confused about whether they were protected. They literally didn’t know that they had rights. This law makes it clear that the discrimination they might experience in the workplace, the community health clinic, at school is illegal.

And how does race factor in?

In our research we’ve found that a lot of trans people face some kind of discrimination in their everyday lives. The rates of discrimination almost correlate directly to income level and education attainment. Because of systemic racial oppression, trans folks of color are likely to have fewer employment opportunities, lower education levels and have less income. It’s almost like they’re caught in a cycle of discrimination. This law will [interrupt] that cycle.

For information about the connection between race and gender discrimination on a national level, click here.