The Department of Housing and Urban Development is planning to focus group LGBT people to determine if their is bias in rental housing for this class.  According to the Washington Free Beacon:

"The department posted a 30-day notice in the Federal Register on Monday, explaining its intention to interview 60 LGBT potential renters and 15 heterosexual renters, and document their experiences in big cities.

“The department is conducting this study as part of a larger effort to study housing discrimination,” the notice said. “As part of that research, the department would like to learn more about the process that people use to search for housing.”

“Specifically, we are interested in the manner in which people identify themselves as lesbian, gay, or transgender when searching for rental housing,” HUD said. “The full project is to conduct in-person testing for lesbian and gay people in at least two major metropolitan rental markets and transgender people in at least one market.”

I have worked in in the real estate rental market for over 16 years and have never had someone go out of their way to identify their sexual or gender preferences. I have had a few applicants tell me they were gay, and that was primarily to explain their requirements (a one bedroom apartment for two people, for example.)  Nobody just blurts out "I'm gay" much less "I'm transgendered". That happened to me only one time, when a tenant called looking for another apartment and said, "I just had a sex change operation" to which I merely grunted in acknowledgement; what is there to say? Congratulations? 

That was the only time it came up. And there really is no reason for it to come up; the law is quite clear in how this sort of thing is to be handled. You treat a transgendered person in the same manner you would treat anyone else. It isn't something that requires any guidance, and it is not something that normally impinges on ones business practice. We do have the Fair Housing laws, and those laws are tested on a regular basis by agents of the government.

And yet HUD wants to push the issue. According to the Free Beacon:

Why? It's not enough to maintain privacy and receive equal treatment, but now we must celebrate someone's particular situation. Why spend millions of dollars (the tab for this little program is $3 million for phase 1 and $2 mill for phase 2 for the LGBT research alone - the total program cost since 2010 is $22 million) to learn what has already been recorded by government testers?

So why are they doing this?

Why did Harold Hill campaign against a pool hall in River City Iowa in The Music Man?  Yessir, we got trouble!  But happily our hero Barack Obama will have the answer!

The Left is gearing up for a major push in this area, the next "civil rights" struggle, intended to make gender specifics a thing of the past. The Brave New World they seek will be a place where the individual gets to be his own god, where a man clicks his heels together three times and says "I want to be a little girl" and voila!  Her fondest dream has come true. A world where the will triumphs over the tyranny of reality. Where self-delusion aided by science serves as the new high priest for the god of Man and Womyn.

Studies like this one are designed to give ammunition to the activists for future battles. The "researchers" know that LGBT tenants will complain bitterly of their treatment no matter what; they know that what they are doing is outside of the norm and salve their own consciences by directing their pain outward. There will be much talk of subtle discrimination, micro-aggression, meaning none that is actionable and yet it will be too much, according to the Progressives. There will be a push for new laws and regulations. In the end not just tolerance but celebration will be demanded of others.

Rights do not obligate positive actions from others.

Timothy Birdnow is a St. Louis based writer and real estate man. Read more from Tim and friends at The Aviary www.tbirdnow.mee.nu