HUD proposed a rule rescinding gender-identity protections across nearly 50 housing regulations, restricting shelters to biological sex

On April 23, 2026, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced a proposed rule, "Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Revisions," that would remove references to gender identity and sexual orientation from nearly 50 HUD regulations and replace them with biological definitions of sex. The proposal would revise HUD's 2016 Equal Access Rule and remove the prohibition on gender-identity discrimination across all Community Planning and Development programs, and would allow operators of single-sex or sex-specific facilities — including emergency shelters and facilities with shared sleeping quarters or bathrooms — to request "reasonable assurances and evidence" to verify an individual's sex. In effect, the rule would permit federally funded shelters to admit people based on biological sex rather than gender identity, excluding transgender people from facilities that match their gender identity.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner framed the proposal as carrying out President Trump's January 20, 2025 executive order, "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government," which directed the government to recognize only two sexes based on biology and instructed HUD to move to rescind the Equal Access Rule. "God created two sexes: male and female," Turner said. "The Left's war on biological reality through radical gender ideology will no longer take precedence over the safety and security of America's most vulnerable women."

The 2016 Equal Access Rule required HUD-funded programs, shelters, and other facilities to provide access in accordance with an individual's gender identity, and barred providers from subjecting people to intrusive questioning or demands for anatomical or medical evidence of their gender. The proposed rule builds on Turner's February 2025 order, which halted any pending or future enforcement of that rule; the April 2026 action is the formal rulemaking step toward permanently rescinding the gender-identity protections. Housing and civil-rights advocates said the change would marginalize transgender people, who experience homelessness at disproportionately high rates.

Updates

2026-04-28 — Proposed rule published in the Federal Register [2]

HUD's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, "Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Revisions," was published in the Federal Register on April 28, 2026, opening a public comment period on the proposal to strip gender-identity and sexual-orientation protections from HUD housing programs.

2026-06-29 — Public comment period closed amid organized opposition [6]

The comment period on the proposed rule closed on June 29, 2026. Housing, disability, and civil-rights organizations — including the National Low Income Housing Coalition and Advocates 4 Trans Equality, which ran a "Housing with Dignity" campaign — filed comments opposing the rule, arguing it would invite invasive questioning about sex assigned at birth and override state and local anti-discrimination laws.