Pinellas shelters fine-tune their policies to better serve transgendered people
By Keyonna Summers, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Monday, January 28, 2013
http://www.tampabay.com/news/pinellas-shelters-fine-tune-their-policies-to-better-serve-transgendered/1272541LARGO — Mingling with other homeless women in the female pod at Pinellas Safe Harbor, Tracy Abel was settling in for the night when trouble began.
It was the 31-year-old's first visit to the shelter, and she was startled when two guards stood over her telling her there had been a mistake.
A check had shown that the petite brunet's Social Security number originally was issued to a man. Questioning by shelter staff revealed that Abel, unable to afford a $19,000 sex-reassignment surgery, still had male genitalia.
That raised a difficult question: In a communal setting, where sleep and shower facilities are shared, where do you house someone who presents as one gender, but has genitalia of the other?
