内容摘要：While the ruling was cheered by some feminist groups, it was condemned by trans-rights groups who said it would have a broad and detrimental impact on daily life.

While the ruling was cheered by some feminist groups, it was condemned by trans-rights groups who said it would have a broad and detrimental impact on daily life.

Bea Gonzalez, a transgender man, was kicked out of a suburban St. Louis domestic violence shelter on a chilly night in November 2021, along with his three children, then 2, 5 and 7.The family was just settling into a room after filling out paperwork at Bridgeway Behavioral Health Women’s Center when Gonzalez was told they had to go because he disclosed he was a transgender man.

“I wasn’t about to go back into the closet,” the 33-year-old said of his insistence on telling the truth even after it was suggested he keep his trans identity secret.He needed a domestic violence shelter, he said, for greater security for the children and because he feared for his safety as a trans man in a men’s shelter, some of which don’t accept children anyway.The city had no domestic violence shelters for men, said his attorney Kalila Jackson. “In the St. Louis metropolitan area, there was no place else for him to go. There were no other options.”

The family was sent to a motel, but when they arrived they discovered it hadn’t been paid for, and the organization that sent them there was closed. “So I was stranded,” said Gonzalez, who did not have a car. “I had to call a friend who was able to let us stay for the night.”Bea Gonzalez, a transgender man who was kicked out of a domestic violence shelter in November 2021 along with his three children, poses for a photo, April 9, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Bea Gonzalez, a transgender man who was kicked out of a domestic violence shelter in November 2021 along with his three children, poses for a photo, April 9, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Jackson said Bridgeway received HUD funding and that its policy of barring transgender men was a violation of the Equal Access Rule and “straight up sex discrimination.”“Now they’re using tools of the state to actually go after people,” said a Columbia graduate student from South Asia who has been active in protests and spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about losing her visa.

Some supporters of deportation say they’re focused on students whose activities go beyond protest, pointing to those who incite violence or“If you’re here, right, on a student visa causing civil unrest ... assaulting people on the streets, chanting for people’s death, why the heck did you come to this country?” said Eliyahu Hawila, the software engineer whose company built the tool designed to identify masked protesters.

But an Arab-American advocate said he worries that groups bent on exposing pro-Palestinian activists will make mistakes and single out students who did nothing wrong, potentially costing them the right to stay in the U.S.Contact AP’s global investigative team at