Trans Woman’s Lawsuit Over NYC Shelter Placement Can Proceed
Jane Doe claims the city violated its human rights law by barring her from women’s shelters, leaving her vulnerable to sexual assault.
A Manhattan Supreme Court judge has allowed a transgender woman’s discrimination lawsuit against New York City to proceed after she was allegedly barred from a women’s intake shelter.
The city had asked Judge Lyle Frank of the First Judicial District to dismiss the woman’s lawsuit, but Frank denied that motion, reports Gothamist.
In the lawsuit, the woman — identified as Jane Doe — claims she was repeatedly misgendered, sexually assaulted, and harassed during her time in the city’s shelter system.
Doe claims the city violated its own human rights law, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, when it barred her from staying in a women’s shelter — forcing her either to stay in men’s shelters or search for one of the few shelters with beds set aside for transgender and gender-nonconforming people.
In 2022, as she struggled with homelessness, Doe claims a 311 dispatcher told her she could not go to a women’s intake center until she had been on hormone replacement therapy for at least a year.
As a result, Doe was forced to spend time at the 30th Street Men’s Intake Shelter, the NAICA East Tremont Shelter, and the Second Avenue Men’s Shelter before being placed at Pam’s Place, a women’s shelter with beds set aside for transgender and gender-nonconforming people, in 2023.
At Pam’s Place, Doe claims that staff repeatedly misgendered her and that several cisgender men placed in her room sexually assaulted and harassed her. She obtained her own apartment in February 2025.
The city’s Department of Homeless Services operates all intake centers and contracts with both public and private shelter providers. Doe sued the city, alleging that her rights under the New York City Human Rights Law were violated when she was barred from women’s shelters and placed in environments where she was more likely to be physically and sexually assaulted.
In addition to compensation and legal fees, Doe is asking the court to declare that the city’s shelter assignment practices violate its human rights law. She also wants the court to bar the city from denying transgender people access to shelters that match their gender identity or requiring proof of transition-related care, and to require the city to clarify its shelter assignment policies and improve training for shelter providers on accommodating transgender people.
Current city policy does not require people seeking shelter to verify their gender identity or provide proof of hormone therapy — contrary to what Doe alleges the 311 dispatcher told her.
Neha Sharma, a spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Social Services, which oversees the Department of Homeless Services, told Gothamist the agency remains “firmly committed to strengthening systemwide protections for transgender New Yorkers while ensuring trauma-informed supports across city shelters.”
The city argued in its motion to dismiss that Doe lacked standing to bring the suit and that the existence of its nondiscrimination policies refuted her claim that she was barred from women’s shelters.
But Frank ruled that the city’s Human Rights Law 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 nondiscrimination policy.” He also found that the city can be held liable under the law for the actions of employees of organizations contracted to provide city shelter services.
The ruling allows Doe’s lawsuit to proceed, though no date has been set for the next stage of the case.
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