Christian Homeless Shelter Sues for Right to Turn Away Trans Women

An Anchorage, Alaska homeless shelter is suing the city in an attempt to block transgender women from staying there overnight.

A local gender identity law would generally require shelters to accept homeless people based on the gender they identify as, but notorious anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom is arguing that this should not apply to Hope Center, a faith-based shelter.

Last year, a trans woman was denied entry to the shelter. Hope Center maintains it was because she arrived intoxicated and injured after a fight at another shelter, and claim they sent her to a hospital.

The same unidentified woman says she was turned away again the next day.

That case is still pending review, due partly to the shelter being uncooperative, and the assistant municipal attorney says the additional lawsuit is therefore "premature."

However, it's clear that ADF, who also represented Colorado's "antigay" baker, is interested in stopping the shelter from ever having to follow local law and allow transgender women to sleep there.

Ryan Tucker, an attorney with ADF, even went so far as to that "biological men" are welcome to use the shelters in the city that are designated for men.

A U.S. District Judge heard the arguments on Friday and is taking them under consideration.