Ben Carson HUD Secretary: Trans People Are A Threat, Make Others Uncomfortable

By: Paul Goldberg, Staff Writer

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson continues to show his anti-LGBTQ narrative with his latest anti-transgender rhetoric in today’s congressional hearing in Washington D.C. The HUD Secretary stated that his department reversing the current policy instituted by President Obama on anti discrimination protections for trans people.

The HUD secretary feels that trans-people’s presence in homeless shelters makes the other homeless heterosexual people feel uncomfortable. So now, Carson is calling Trans-people who are homeless a threat?

Carson made his outrageous remarks on Tuesday March 20, at a Congressional hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. During his explanation as to why last year’s removal of brochures from the HUD website that offered guidelines for homeless shelters on how to avoid discrimination against transgender people, he went on too say that he has instructed HUD’s general counsel to review and scrutinize the language to see if it ensures “equal rights for the women that come to shelters and for shelters that allow both men and women their equal rights.

“We want to look at things that really provide for everybody and doesn’t impede the rights of one for the sake of the other. It’s a complex issue.” Carson told the committee.

When Carson as asked how assuring equal rights for trans people would interfere with anyone else’s rights, Carson said…“There are some women who said they were not comfortable with the idea of being in a shelter, being in a shower, and somebody who had a very different anatomy,” said Carson.

GLAAD immediately condemned Ben Carson’s remarks at today’s hearing.
“It is because of derogatory myths like this, which have been debunked time and time again, that the transgender community faces disproportionate levels of discrimination and homelessness.” said GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. “Today’s blatant and factually inaccurate anti-transgender rhetoric is the latest in a long line of uninformed and biased statements about LGBTQ people that make Dr. Carson unfit to be the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.” said Ellis.