LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic Creates Toolkit on the Rights of Trans People in NYC Shelter System

Legal Services Center’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic Collaborates to Create ‘Room to Be Me!’ Toolkit

By: Elaine McArdle

The LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, in collaboration with The Bronx Defenders and the Center for Urban Pedagogy, has created a toolkit, Room to Be Me!, on the rights of transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary, and intersex (TGNCNBI) people in the New York City shelter system. In a user-friendly style, the toolkit offers TGNCNBI people information they need to find gender-affirming housing in shelters and assert their rights once placed in a shelter. 

Deborah Lolai, Clinical Instructor at the clinic, worked on the project along with student Mythili Mishra ’24. “Through her work in the clinic, Mythili did extensive research into the rights we wanted to relay in this guide and facilitated a presentation for the project team on what the content of this guide should include,” says Lolai. “Following her research and presentation, we worked with directly impacted community members who provided direction and feedback throughout the entire process. Shelters, like prisons, bathrooms, and other gendered facilities, can be spaces where the transgender community faces harassment and violence. Now more than ever, people need to know what their rights are in these places.”