The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on Thursday announced that it will immediately begin to enforce Fair Housing Act protections to prohibit LGBT discrimination.

HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) issued a memorandum stating that HUD interprets the Fair Housing Act to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The announcement comes after President Joe Biden, on his first day in office, signed an executive order implementing the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County.

The Supreme Court's Bostock decision, handed down in June, found that anti-LGBT discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. The ruling has wide-ranging implications, affecting policies that prohibit discrimination based on sex. It specifically prohibits workplace discrimination.

“Housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity demands urgent enforcement action,” FHEO Acting Assistant Secretary Jeanine M. Worden said in a statement. “That is why HUD, under the Biden Administration, will fully enforce the Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. Every person should be able to secure a roof over their head free from discrimination, and the action we are taking today will move us closer to that goal.”

“We are simply saying that the same discrimination that the Supreme Court has said is illegal in the workplace is also illegal in the housing market,” added Damon Y. Smith, principal deputy general counsel at HUD.

HUD's FHEO has already started taking complaints of LGBT discrimination at hud.gov/fairhousing.

Representative Mike Quigley, a Democrat from Illinois, said that the previous administration was “committed to enabling discrimination, prejudice, and bigotry.”

“For the past four years I have fought alongside LGBTQ and housing activists against a Trump-Carson HUD that was committed to enabling discrimination, prejudice, and bigotry. Today’s announcement, in the first weeks of the Biden administration, is a declaration that LGBTQ rights are human rights and that housing discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation is unacceptable and should be relegated to the shameful past,” said Quigley. “There is more work to be done to repair the damage of the last four years, but this is a significant step into a more just future that we can be proud of.”

(Related: Ben Carson: Transgender people in homeless shelters make others “not comfortable.”)

Quigley, a vocal supporter of LGBT rights, last June called on former HUD Secretary Ben Carson to resign due to his department's anti-LGBT policies. Carson, a 2016 presidential candidate, is openly hostile to LGBT rights.

(Related: Ben Carson warns gay marriage will lead to “mass killings,” transgender people are confused.)