February 21, 2024

Supporting LGBTQ+ renters in Western Mass.

BY Luis FieldmanMassLive

MassLive recently asked readers to identify people who are leaders from the LGBTQ+ community throughout the state, working to make a difference in their own area of interest, be it politics, education, business or the arts.

Profiles of these leaders will be published through the rest of February. These are people our readers have identified as inspirational, who may be doing good acts for their communities. They are being recognized for their accomplishments, leadership and commitment to inspire change.

Nuri Sherif

Nuri Sherif is an LGBTQ+ legal advocate for renters in Western Massachusetts.

Age: 31

Community: Hampshire, Franklin, Berkshire and Hampden counties

Their story: Nuri Sherif is a legal advocate for renters in Western Massachusetts who face discrimination. They work at Community Legal Aid as a fair housing testing coordinator, and specifically, works on community outreach and raises awareness about fair housing rights.

As part of Sherif’s work, they’ve uncovered evidence of discrimination in the form of “ghosting” where housing providers never communicated with transgender testers but did communicate with cisgender testers.

“Discrimination in the rental market is often hard to detect; housing testing allows us to isolate characteristics protected by fair housing laws so that we can gather evidence of business practices that are motivated by discrimination,” Sherif said.

Ghosting prospective tenants can be illegal when it happens based on the person’s race, color, national origin, sex (including sexuality, gender identity/expression and domestic violence-related issues).

The testing results that show evidence of discrimination can be used to support claims in court, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, and complaints to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Sherif said.

They also offer legal support to Gender Identity Validation Services (GIVS) which is a non-profit that provides free name and gender marker changes to LGBTQ+ people in western Massachusetts.

In their words: “There are so many ways to advocate for 2SLGBTQIA+ people’s legal rights,” Sherif said. “Particularly since systemic oppression is intersectional, if we each pull at one thread we can collectively unravel systems designed to marginalize us. I think it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the extent of the work that needs to be done; I stay grounded and motivated when I assess my strengths and work towards cutting the threads that I have the tools to cut. Collective liberation requires collective action.”