Ben Carson: Unfit to Serve
Op-Ed Nick Large
On Tuesday, September 18th, Ben Carson descended upon San Francisco. Speaking to HUD employees, Carson made now-infamous comments referring to transgender women as “big, hairy men,” and lamented to a time when there were “just women and just men.” Greeted with protest, one employee urged him to reconsider his static historical notions to gender, and another left the meeting altogether. Carson later went to go on and defend these comments and explained, “my point was that we have to permit policies that take into consideration the rights of everybody…” As Ben Carson has shown over the past few years, the “rights of everybody” has proven to be the rights of everyone who doesn’t identify as LGBT. Although most of HUD’s operations and policies have seemingly skirted under the nose of the Trump administration, it seems like that might be changing.
Starting in 2017, HUD removed training materials for the Equal Access Rule, a final rule aimed at preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. The training materials, which were only up for a few months before the Trump administration came into office, primarily provided best practices and exercises for dealing with gender identity. A groundbreaking toolkit, the training materials provided example inclusive policies, helpful glossaries of terms and definitions, and even mock conversations and a trans-inclusive self-assessment tool for providers to apply the materials practically. Not stopping at merely removing the materials; however, Carson’s HUD also effectively canceled the public posting requirement about the Equal Access Rule. Similar to the Fair Housing Act requirement of a public posting, this would have been a required poster informing those accessing related HUD-funded programs of their rights. Such as, the right to use sex-segregated facilities that align with your gender identity.
After skirting around the Equal Access Rule for almost two years, Carson has now decided to target it more directly. Appallingly, he announced this exactly one day after he testified before Congress that he would not be bringing changes to the rule. Consistent with the Trump administration’s priority of codifying discrimination under the guise of religious liberty, he did this by releasing a proposed rule that would permit shelter providers to discriminate against transgender people based on “privacy, safety, practical concerns, or religious belief.” Although a proposed rule does not become the law of the land immediately, and the Equal Access Rule is currently in effect, it may not be for much longer.
