On Feb. 25, 2021, the House of Representatives voted to pass the historic Equality Act, a bill that would revise existing civil rights law in order to explicitly ban discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation and expand current protections. In short: The law would give LBGTQ+ people the same rights millions of Americans have had for decades. But in the last year, the bill has stalled in the Senate, where it needs all Democrats and at least 10 Republicans to vote in favor for it to land on President Biden’s desk. Biden named the Equality Act a top priority during his first 100 days, and with that deadline long passed, advocates are urging members to pass the bill before the November midterms could change the current makeup of the Senate.
In order to bring awareness and help galvanize public support for the Equality Act, the Human Rights Campaign recently revealed its new Reality Flag: an American flag with 29 stars removed to represent the 29 states that don’t have comprehensive legal protections for LGBTQ+ people. Queen Hatcher-Johnson, a Black transgender woman who lives in Georgia, is featured in HRC’s campaign. Before becoming a homeowner, Hatcher-Johnson faced years of housing discrimination and was once asked to move out after she told her landlord she was transgender.
“Seeing the Reality Flag motivates me to be visible about what it means to be in America and not be considered an American,” she told ELLE.com. “To be an American means to be protected and to be free from discrimination.” Below, Hatcher-Johnson shares, in her own words, the lasting effects of dealing with housing insecurity and what a law like the Equality Act would mean to her.
There have been times in my life—sometimes three months, sometimes two years—where I’ve been unhoused. I’d go to a friend’s house, where maybe they’d provide a couch or a bed, or I’d go to a shelter. But during that time, they didn’t have trans-friendly shelters. You had to choose your evil: either remain outside or go into the men’s shelter.
Not having sustainable housing makes you feel worthless. It makes you feel hopeless. You’re constantly in fear for your life, your safety. Sleeping in abandoned houses or wandering the streets—that’s not safe for any human, then imagine adding the layer of being a person of trans experience. It weighs on your mental health.
At one point, I was living in a men’s shelter in New York, and it was not a safe place. My girlfriend had moved to North Carolina and was living with her sister, a cisgender female, and she extended an offer to me to come there. I moved, got a job working as a gas station attendant, and I was able to save some money. I found a private landlord, who I thought was a good person, and he agreed to rent me a three-bedroom house. I’d been staying there for under two years when I had some maintenance issues. Usually, if I needed repairs, the landlord would outsource the work, but this time, he said he could do it.
He came into the house, where I had displayed my equality sticker, my pride flag, and my trans flag, and he asked about it. I told him, “That flag represents the community I come from as a person of trans experience.” That’s when he started in on his religious views, saying it’s not “of God.” I told him, “I do appreciate your point of view, however those are not my values. I don’t govern myself according to other people’s religious perspectives or points of view. God loves us all.”
But he continued, telling me about his wife and the family dynamic, saying that’s why the world was created, for everyone to procreate. I said, “Not everyone can procreate, regardless of any identity.” Long story short, mysteriously a few weeks later, he gave me a call and told me he was going to sell the property, and I would need to find somewhere else to live. We had a lease agreement, but he knew I couldn’t afford a lawyer, and that all the evidence I had was my word against his word. I felt deceived, and I felt lost.
In sharing my life with him, I thought I was creating an ally, but I was actually talking myself out of a home. I wasn’t trying to change his religious values; I was just trying to introduce him to my life experiences. Based on the camaraderie I thought we’d built over almost two years, I thought he would respect me, if not as a trans person, then just as a human. But unfortunately that wasn’t true.
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Later I moved to Georgia, and I was able to secure a spot in a rooming house, a place where the landlord rents rooms to individuals. But there was no one who had the same gender identity as me in that house. People say derogatory things once they find out that you’re trans. Then it got back to the landlord that I was a person who was “disrupting” the house; I was in my 40s, and all I wanted was to go to work, come home, and relax. But I was told, “You’re disrupting the house. We can’t have that.” So again, I was homeless.
If I knew I had legal protections, I would have been able to advocate for myself or even entertain the thought of speaking with a lawyer. Having legal protections, like the Equality Act, would give us a layer of safety. People would think differently about, or at least give a second thought to, evicting someone based on their trans identity. There would be a level of accountability. We’re entitled to the Equality Act. We’re entitled to be seen as human beings. We’re entitled to navigate this earth with the protections every other human has.
There’s an American Dream that we’re sold when we’re children: Have a house, and have a family. Even when I was experiencing unsustainable housing and all these forms of discrimination—all based on me being Black or me being a person of trans experience—that dream never left my mind. I never thought home ownership was obtainable, but in 2017, I got married, and in 2019, we became homeowners. And it was a journey. It was like walking down a very dark street and not knowing what would come out at you, but just keeping on task. I had to get to the end of the street. I had to do it, not just for me, but for the people behind me, to let them know you can do all of this.
Now, even though I’m a homeowner, I’m still fearful of being unhoused. You overwork yourself, you overthink everything, because of that fear. You don’t want to go back to where you came from. To me, being a homeowner doesn’t create a layer of sustainability, but at least it creates a mirage. I live in that mirage, and hopefully it never ends.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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