Press Release

(Seattle, WA, September 11, 2020) – A federal district judge today adopted the recommendation of a magistrate judge and struck down as unconstitutional the U.S. Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) categorical denial of survivor’s benefits to surviving same-sex partners who were barred from marrying due to discriminatory state marriage bans

(New York, September 10, 2020) — Henry van Ameringen, a philanthropic giant and early supporter of LGBTQ equality, passed away yesterday at the age of 90.

(Washington, DC, Sept. 9, 2020) – Today, just weeks ahead of the presidential election, President Donald Trump released a new shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees that is teeming with anti-LGBT extremists and dangerous ideologues.

(Baltimore, MD, September 3, 2020) – Yesterday, a federal district court denied a request by the Trump administration to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two former U.S. military cadets challenging the administration’s discriminatory policies targeting servicemembers living with HIV. The ruling, out of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, came in the case of Deese & Doe v. Esper, filed by Lambda Legal and Modern Military Association of America (MMAA) with pro bono co-counsel Winston & Strawn.

In the opinion supporting its decision, the court states:

(Washington, D.C., September 2, 2020) – Today, a federal district court judge granted Lambda Legal’s request for a preliminary injunction, putting an immediate stop to key aspects of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) health care discrimination rule which seeks to carve out LGBTQ people and other vulnerable populations from regulatory protections under the Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination provision known as Section 1557.

WASHINGTON — Today, 87 national, state, and local LGBTQ, civil rights, and community organizations urged the U.S. Senate to reconvene and move quickly to pass the Delivering for America Act, legislation recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in a bipartisan vote that would protect and strengthen the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

(ATLANTA, GA -- August 27, 2020) — A federal court in Georgia today ordered the Trump Administration to recognize the U.S. citizenship since birth of Simone Mize-Gregg, the two-year-old daughter of a married same-sex couple, and to issue her a U.S. passport. The U.S. State Department had refused to recognize Simone as a U.S. citizen, even though both of her parents, Derek Mize and Jonathan Gregg, are U.S. citizens and children born abroad to heterosexual married U.S. citizens are automatically considered U.S. citizens themselves.

Washington, D.C. — Today, two federally recognized Indian tribes, a California-based coalition of tribes, a foster youth and foster care alumni group, and three organizations that work with LGBTQ+ and two-spirit youth in foster care sued the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

WASHINGTON — Today, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) — two of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organizations — sent a letter to Congress urging passage of the Delivering for America Act, which will protect and strengthen the United States Postal Service (USPS).

(Washington, DC, August 20, 2020) – Today, Lambda Legal submitted a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of itself and 26 local, state, and national organizations that serve LGBTQ youth urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold an appellate court ruling denying Catholic Social Services’ (“CSS”) request that Philadelphia be ordered to contract with CSS for foster parent licensing and recruitment while allowing CSS to refuse to license same-sex couples to foster children who can’t safely return to their own homes.