9 - ‘You mean, my theoretical rights?’ Exploring service shortfalls and administrative (in)justice among homeless trans people

Summary

Introduction

‘The first option I was offered … was to go into [a high support, predominantly male hostel] … I had literally just started hormones at that point, I don't want to be with traumatised men, looking like I do right now. “Oh, do you want to go to a woman's shelter?” and I said, “No, that's not really appropriate either. Because I’m gonna be growing a beard and my voice is going to be dropping.” There's so much stuff in the press about people in sex-based spaces. That was something that was playing on my mind, if I went into a woman's shelter, am I going to end up on the front pages of the Daily Mail, like. I was really terrified.’

This chapter reports upon findings from interviews with Welsh trans people,1 drawing on one of the largest studies of trans people's experiences of homelessness to date (see England, 2021, 2022a). In the opening extract, Daniel (he), a young trans man, describes a common experience among participants: after becoming homeless, and seeking help, he approached services, but found that the options available to him were limited and did not adequately meet his needs as a trans man, because they were organised around a heteronormative understanding of gender. Denying Daniel the early intervention that is well understood to be critical in preventing repeated and cyclical homelessness (Fitzpatrick et al, 2021) represented a missed opportunity to avert, for him, the repeated and long-term homelessness that is common among trans people as a group – nearly a quarter of trans people will experience homelessness during their lifetime, reflecting high prevalence of poverty, employment and housing discrimination, physical and mental ill health and compromised access to medical care (Reck, 2009; Spicer, 2010; Shelton, 2016; Kattari and Begun, 2017; Bachman and Gooch, 2018; Ecker et al, 2019; Wilson et al, 2020; England, 2021). This is especially important, given a growing awareness that LGBTQ+ people as a group have specific needs in terms of avoiding, resolving and surviving homelessness (Albert Kennedy Trust, 2018; Ecker et al, 2019; Matthews et al, 2019) – for instance, the main study on which this chapter draws additionally identified relationship breakdown as a key vector into homelessness and, to a lesser extent, familial rejection (England, 2022b).