Plaintiffs

Lambda Legal and Modern Military Association of America (MMAA) filed a lawsuit on behalf of Kevin Deese and John Doe (a pseudonym), who the Navy and Air Force refused to commission as officers based on their HIV-positive status after they graduated from the respective military academy for each branch of the Armed Services. In both situations, these now former Service Members had the support of their superiors and military healthcare providers to continue serving and to commission as officers. 

Lambda Legal filed a motion on behalf of a 63-year-old gay man arguing that the Social Security Administration’s denial of spousal survivor’s benefits to him, on the grounds that he was not married for long enough despite marrying on the very first day when he was allowed to do so, is unconstitutional.

Lambda Legal joined Arnold & Porter in a lawsuit filed against the Prince George’s County Public Schools and Board of Education on behalf of a transgender teacher who endured years of abuse, harassment and retaliation at the hands of school administrators, fellow teachers, staff, parents and students after she began to live authentically as the woman she is. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on behalf of Jennifer Eller, an English teacher who taught at three schools within the district from 2008 to 2017, when she was forced to resign.

A lawsuit against the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) on behalf of a 65-year-old gay man seeking spousal survivor’s benefits based on his 43-year relationship with his husband, who died seven months after Arizona began allowing same-sex couples to marry. The lawsuit filed on behalf of Michael Ely in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona argues that SSA’s imposition of a nine-month marriage requirement for social security survivor’s benefits is unconstitutional where same-sex couples were not able to be married for nine months because of discriminatory marriage laws.

If you married your same-sex spouse, but were unable to be married for at least nine months before your spouse’s death because of discriminatory marriage laws where you lived, you may be a member of the Ely class. Click here for the Ely FAQ: https://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/legal-docs/20210212_ely_faq

Lambda Legal and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Justice and BOP seeking all documents and communications connected to its decision to alter the Manual. The changes weaken protections for transgender people who are incarcerated.

On November 12, 2018, Lambda Legal and Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service announced the successful settlement of a 2015 lawsuit filed on behalf of John Dorn against the Michigan Department of Corrections. Mr. Dorn’s settlement with the MDOC includes substantive changes to the MDOC policy directive that allowed disproportionate punishment of incarcerated people living with HIV without adequate justification, an MDOC review and reconsideration of other individuals who were classified to administrative segregation under the former policy, and a monetary settlement.

Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit challenging Kansas’ refusal to correct the gender marker on birth certificates for transgender individuals. At the time of the filing, Kansas was one of just three states, along with Tennessee and Ohio, that had yet to change this extremely regressive and outdated policy.

Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, GLBTQ Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the National LGBT Bar Association filed an amicus brief urging the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the appeal of Charles Rhines, a gay man on death row in South Dakota.

Lambda Legal filed a complaint in United States District Court on behalf of Nikko Briteramos against the owner of a Los Angeles barbershop who refused to cut Briteramos’s hair because he is living with HIV.

Lambda Legal filed an amicus brief in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman fired by her employer for her gender identity. At issue in the case are both an employment discrimination claim and a religious exemptions issue.