problems and anxiety for transgender people in order to alleviate the person’s concerns as soon as possible. The conversation should be honest and frank—this shows willingness to discuss issues openly and firmness on policies (which is often comforting because it shows that there will be firm enforcement of rules of harassment, for example). Topics to be covered include: •
Preferred name and whether or not the resident prefers to be called “he” or “she”
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Placement for housing
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Privacy in showering and bathrooms
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Safety concerns
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Confidentiality
These conversations will be different for different types of facilities; some facilities have a long intake conversation with everyone, others have short ones. Regardless of its length, the importance of such a conversation cannot be overstated. Ensuring that transgender residents feel safe requires being proactive, which means that shelter staff must be the first to bring issues to the table. Staff may wonder how they will know whether a resident is transgender. The answer is there are things the staff person can do in the intake process that will allow a transgender resident to feel safe telling the intake person they are transgender. Some people, for fear of discrimination and mistreatment, will not feel comfortable disclosing that they are transgender, and that is fine too. However, for those who are transgender and have concerns, the following alterations in the intake process will allow them to disclose that fact and have the conversation about policies that ensure their privacy and safety.
CONFIDENTIALITY It is important to first establish a shelter confidentiality policy and understand why a resident’s transgender status should be treated as confidential information. Confidentiality about a person’s transgender status is important to prevent or minimize the potential for the resident to experience discrimination, harassment or violence. In fact, a transgender person should not even be Confidentiality about a required to disclose if they are transgender or not.
person’s transgender
Some shelters have found it useful to apply the same policy of confistatus is important to dentiality about a resident’s transgender status that they do for inforprevent or minimize the mation about medical conditions—only the staff needing to know the potential for the resident to information are told and other residents are never given information experience discrimination, about other people’s medical issues. Other shelters ask transgender harassment or violence. people how they would like the information addressed if it comes up. If the transgender person is very open about being transgender, then staff can be free to discuss this information freely with other residents when appropriate. The fact that the shelter will treat this information confidentially may make the difference between whether transgender people will tell staff about being transgender.
INTAKE FORMS The intake process may include forms—forms that either the incoming residents fills out on their own or a staff member reads and fills out according to the answers given.
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TRANSITIONING OUR SHELTERS