HUD proposes to rewrite the Equal Access Rule ("Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Revisions")

HUD published an NPRM (91 FR, doc. 2026-08244) that would revise nearly 50 regulations to strip "gender identity" and "sexual orientation" from HUD program rules, define program access by "sex" (biological), authorize single-sex facilities to demand "reasonable assurances or evidence to establish a person's sex," and purport to preempt conflicting state and local nondiscrimination laws in CPD-funded programs. It would dismantle both the 2012 Equal Access Rule and the 2016 gender-identity rule, converting the February 2025 enforcement halt into binding regulation and requiring at least some HUD-funded women's shelters to exclude transgender women.