Assistant Professor Christoph Hanssmann contributed to the recent study, “Stop the Revolving Door”.

Transgender people are more likely than other populations to experience homelessness because of family rejection, housing discrimination, domestic violence and more. Yet homeless support services in many cities often fail to meet their needs. Research by two San Francisco State University professors finds that one of those cities is San Francisco.

Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Studies Dilara Yarbrough and Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies Christoph Hanssmann contributed to the recent study, “Stop the Revolving Door,” that looked at the efficacy of the city’s homelessness support services. Featuring a section on trans homelessness, the research released last month is a result of a collaboration with the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, the Transgender Gender-variant and Intersex Justice Project, Mujeres Latinas en Accion at the Saint James Infirmary, El/La Para TransLatinas and other Bay Area universities.

“We need to look at trans experiences as a way to reveal the problems that span across these systems,” said Hanssmann. “Doing this study gave us a lot of great answers about how to address issues around housing deprivation and how to better support trans people.”

For the study, collaborators recruited 130 current and recently homeless trans people in San Francisco and conducted in-depth surveys, focus groups and interviews. “One of the most important aspects of the research was hearing firsthand about homeless shelter experiences from trans people,” says Hanssmann. “Through participants’ anecdotes, it became clear that the enforcement of binary gender norms in San Francisco shelters discriminated against and alienated trans people.”

(“Gender binary” is the increasingly challenged concept that there are only two genders, male and female, which is dictated by sex assigned at birth. Find more information about gender and sexuality on the San Francisco State Health Promotion & Wellness website.)

The study states that trans women (women who were assigned male at birth) are vulnerable to experiencing gender-based violence and harassment in shelters. Based on these findings, researchers made a list of recommendations for policy and structural changes. Read more about the study and its recommendations on the SF State News website.