Nursing homes in New Jersey can no longer deny senior citizens admission or care based on sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status, under a law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy.

Murphy signed the LGBTQI+ Senior Bill of Rights at the Trenton War Memorial on Wednesday. The bill also protects HIV-positive seniors.

Proponents say that nursing home residents who are transgender or non-binary face discrimination from administrators and staff.

“Whether it’s from outright discrimination, all the way to ignorance, to just plain discomfort in their sort of status, their rights, their very beings being questioned, challenged in a way that perhaps they had heretofore gotten to an already better place,” Murphy said.

Under the new law, a nursing home cannot oppose a request by residents to share a room or forbid residents from using restrooms based on gender.