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A Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled this week that a lawsuit brought by a transgender woman against New York City alleging discrimination in the city’s shelter system can move forward.
Lawyers for the city had moved last December to have the case dismissed, but as Gothamist reports, on Monday Judge Lyle E. Frank denied the motion.
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The woman, identified in court documents as “Jane Doe,” claims the city violated the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL), which bans discrimination on the basis of gender and gender identity.
In the complaint, Doe claims that in 2022 she became homeless and sought shelter through 311, the city’s non-emergency service and information line. Doe alleges that a 311 dispatcher she spoke to and multiple New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) staffers told her that transgender women who have not been on hormone replacement therapy for at least a year were not allowed in women’s shelters — in direct contradiction of DHS policy. As the complaint notes, DHS policy states that the department “places clients in units according to the gender they report during the intake process.”
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The complaint further alleges that Doe was sexually assaulted and harassed by other residents at one of three men’s shelters where she was housed, and that her repeated requests to be transferred to a women’s shelter or to a bed set aside for trans and gender non-conforming people (TGNC bed) were denied. When she was finally assigned to a TGNC bed at a women’s shelter, Doe alleges that “staff repeatedly misgendered her, mocked her clothing, called her a ‘whore,’ and told her she looked like a sex worker,” and that she was again sexually assaulted and harassed by cisgender men who were placed in her room.
In its motion to dismiss the case, the city argued, in part, that Doe lacks standing to bring the suit and that DHS’s nondiscrimination policies refute her allegations that she was barred from being assigned to a women’s shelter because she had not been on HRT for a year.
Frank, however, ruled that the NYCHRL “prohibits practice and conduct” and that “a policy alone is insufficient to defeat a claim under NYCHRL if the practice and conduct do not match the non-discrimination policy.” He further noted that under the law, the city can be held liable for the actions of employees of its contractual partners.
Doe is seeking court orders requiring policy and training changes in addition to compensation and legal fees, according to Gothamist. A court date has not been set.
Doe’s attorney, Mariann Wang, told the outlet that Frank’s decision “reflects New York’s laws protecting trans people in shelters against discrimination and abuse.”
“We are incredibly proud and privileged to represent Jane Doe who went through so much,” Wang said, adding that she is hopeful that the case will be “meaningfully” addressed under Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration.
A spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Social Services, which oversees the DHS, told Gothamist that the department is “firmly committed to strengthening systemwide protections for transgender New Yorkers while ensuring trauma-informed supports across city shelters.”
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