The Department of Housing and Urban Development on Wednesday proposed allowing homeless shelters to deny transgender people access to single-sex shelters of their gender identity.

The housing department said in an announcement that the proposed regulation would ensure that shelters “must not discriminate based on sexual orientation or transgender status,” adding that the changes better accommodate the “religious beliefs of shelter providers.”

The Trump administration has been pushing the change, arguing that it would prevent men from surreptitiously gaining access to women’s homeless shelters to abuse residents or track down spouses and partners.

But advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and civil libertarians said the rule would mean transgender women, potentially even other women mistaken as transgender, could be referred to shelters that also accommodate men, where they could face abuse or assault. Some women could lose access to shelter entirely. Read more via New York Times