Plaintiffs

Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit against St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Paterson, New Jersey, after the hospital refused to allow Jionni Conforti’s surgeon to perform a routine hysterectomy because Jionni is transgender. The lawsuit cites the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, which clearly prohibits discrimination because of sex and gender identity, and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

In October 2016, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on behalf of Juliet Evancho, Elissa Ridenour and A.S. against the Pine-Richland School District. In the complaint, Lambda Legal argued that Pine-Richland’s newly-adopted discriminatory restroom policy sends a purposeful message that transgender students in the school district are undeserving of the privacy, respect, and protections afforded to other students.

Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Jessica Hicklin, a 37-year-old transgender woman incarcerated at the Potosi Correctional Center, a facility for male inmates, in Mineral Point, Missouri.

The case challenges a Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC) “freeze-frame” policy that bars access to hormone therapy for inmates and others in custody if they were not receiving treatment prior to incarceration.

After more than 40 years together, Hal Birchfield and James Merrick Smith traveled to New York in October 2012 and got married. Tragically, less than a year later, in September 2013, James died. Upon James’ death, his share of the home they owned together was transferred to Hal, but because at that time Florida did not recognize their marriage, that transfer was treated as a “change of ownership” instead of as a transfer to a surviving spouse. As a result, the taxable value of Hal’s property jumped significantly – a financial burden from which surviving different-sex spouses are protected.

Case appealing a trial court decision denying a transgender man’s name change petition.

Lambda Legal represented Brooke S.B. in her effort to continue to parent the six-year-old son she and her former partner, Elizabeth C.C., planned to have together.

Lambda Legal has brought this lawsuit to enforce California’s paramount interest in nondiscrimination and to make clear that freedom of religion does not include the right to cause harm to others.

Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of North Carolina and Equality North Carolina filed a lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s sweeping anti-LGBT law, HB 2. The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina against North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, Attorney General Roy Cooper, and the University of North Carolina, is on behalf of two transgender North Carolinians, Joaquín Carcaño, a UNC-Chapel Hill employee, and Payton McGarry, a UNC-Greensboro student; Angela Gilmore, a lesbian and North Carolina Central University law professor; and the ACLU of North Carolina and Equality North Carolina.

Lambda Legal has submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a transgender police officer in Nevada who was banned from the workplace restroom consistent with his gender identity and mistreated in other ways. The plaintiff is a man who is also transgender. Although assigned female at birth, he has a male gender identity. The employer ultimately lifted its restroom ban after a year, but continues to argue in court that its actions were legal, which would allow other employers to repeat its conduct.

Lambda Legal filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against a Boulder County property owner who violated the federal Fair Housing Act and the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to rent a housing unit she owns in Gold Hill, Colorado, to a same-sex couple, one of whom is transgender, and their children because she worried their “uniqueness” would jeopardize her standing in the community.