Press Release

(New York, February 4, 2020) – Federal District Judge Deborah A Batts, the first openly lesbian federal judge when she was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President Bill Clinton in in 1994, died Sunday at the age of 72.

(Tacoma, WA, January 31, 2020) – A federal magistrate judge today recommended striking 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.

(DENVER, January 22, 2020) – Lambda Legal today appeared before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to urge the court to uphold a district court ruling that the State Department cannot rely on its male-or-female-only gender policy to withhold a U.S. passport from Dana Zzyym, a U.S. Navy veteran who is intersex and nonbinary, and does not identify as male or female.

Lambda Legal, Immigration Equality and pro bono counsel Morgan Lewis this week urged federal district courts in Georgia and Maryland to compel the U.S. State Department to recognize the U.S. citizenship of two children born abroad to married same-sex couples who are themselves U.S. citizens. Children born abroad to married different-sex parents who are U.S. citizens are routinely recognized as U.S. citizens, but the State Department is deliberately miss-applying federal statutes to deny similar treatment to the marital children of same-sex couples.

(Columbus, OH, January 16, 2019) – Today, Lambda Legal, the ACLU and ACLU of Ohio filed a motion for summary judgment in the Southern District of Ohio, asking the Court to strike down the state’s policy prohibiting transgender people from correcting the gender marker on their birth certificates. The policy is discriminatory and violates the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to privacy, free speech, and equal protection.

(NEW YORK, NY – January 14, 2020) The Tennessee State Senate is poised to vote today Tuesday on Tennessee SB 1304, a license-to-discriminate bill that allows taxpayer-funded child welfare agencies to reject foster or adoptive parents based upon the agency’s religious beliefs.

(Richmond, VA, January 10, 2020) – Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling on Roe & Voe v. Esper that halted efforts by the Trump administration to discharge members of the Air Force because they are living with HIV.

The Oregon Court of Appeals today once again heard oral argument in the case of the Portland-area bakery that denied service to a lesbian couple based on religious objections to serving same-sex couples.

Today Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit challenging New York State’s policy categorically prohibiting transgender minors from correcting the sex designation on their birth certificates – a critically important document for transgender people seeking to navigate through life with accurate government documents.

Today, Lambda Legal released the third edition of its annual report of judicial nominees revealing the alarming extent to which the Trump-Pence administration, with the help of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has filled the federal judiciary with an unprecedented number of unqualified, extremist judges whose records reveal deep hostility for the rights of LGBT people, women, immigrants, and other vulnerable populations.