Trans people and Homelessness

 This is going to be a hard post to write as I have personally been homeless. After a difficult time in my life I ended up on the street and had to go into a hostel for a few months. I was still identifying as a male at the time as I had not come out (this was about 8 years ago now) and it was hard BUT I was lucky.

As an ex British Army Soldier I had support from a few veterans charities, the Royal British Legion and Shelter. They both gave me a lot of help getting the place here I live now, a rented 2 bed house. The RBL was a very big help as they got me a starter pack and paid the deposit and first month rent on my home while I was sorting things out.

Now if I was a Transgender Woman who was not a veteran I would not have got any of that help. What would have happened if I was homeless then?

Well, thanks to the excellent book by Shon Faye, "The Transgender Issue", which is now a best seller, I have an idea.

Hostels in general are hostile to Transgender people. While there is a lot of help for cisgender people who are homeless, unless you are in London here in the UK there is no help for us. In London there is 1 charity that can help you, "Outside Project". This hostel works with Stonewall Housing, an LGBTQI+ housing charity to find housing for all LGBTQI+ people.

Also while homeless people are generally abused a lot for being so, especially if they are sleeping on the street and not in a hostel, this is magnified for Transgender people. Same with domestic abuse. Cisgender women domestic abuse rate is 7.2%, where Transwomen are at 16% and Transwomen are at 20%. Yet there is hardly any support for Transgender people who get abuse.

Also private landlords, who now make up the majority of landlords, can also be predigest against trans people in general. IE they do not want Transgender people staying in there home and there is nothing we can do about that. Not all are, my landlord is fine with me staying at my home, but a lot are.

A lot of Transgender people, especially young transgender people are homeless because they have been rejected by there family and kicked out of the family home with no where to go.

So if you see a homeless person on the street, especially a Transgender homeless person, please just be kind to them. You don't know the circumstance why they are there.