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A newly proposed rule within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) would target transgender people, allowing federally funded shelters and housing providers receiving funds from the government to discriminate on the basis of gender.

The HUD proposal purportedly “harmonizes” the department’s existing Equal Access regulations with President Donald Trump’s anti-transgender executive order he issued on the first day of his second term. That order errantly equates gender with sex, and has been challenged in other realms of the federal government for its discriminatory nature.

The rule change would remove terms like “gender” and “gender identity,” replacing them instead with the word “sex.” Gender is generally understood as “a social construct expressed and reinforced by norms, behaviors, and roles assigned to people based on their perceived sex,” and is understood by scientists as not being binary, whereas sex is based on an individual’s arrangement of chromosomes.

The HUD proposal would allow housing partners of the federal government to resume discrimination against people seeking housing based on gender, rolling back standards that were implemented during the Obama........

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