NY Landlord Battles Trans Discrimination Suit
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

(New York City) A New York City landlord is trying to block the city's largest Hispanic HIV/AIDS group from suing it for refusing to allow trans patients to use gender appropriate washrooms.

Hispanic AIDS Forum was forced out of its home of 10 years in Jackson Heights, Queens – an epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in U.S. Latino communities – in 2001 because the landlord yielded to complaints from another tenant about the agency’s transgender clients.

HAF repeatedly tried to negotiate with the landlord to reach an agreement over the use of the restrooms that would be acceptable to all parties, but the landlord refused to renew the lease, saying it didn’t even want the transgender clients in any of the common areas of the building.

The ACLU brought the lawsuit on behalf of HAF in June 2001. Last fall a New York judge gave approval for the case to proceed but the landlord appealed claiming that trans people are not protected by the state’s civil rights laws.