Press Release

NEW YORK (October 30, 2017) - Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) is joining forces with Lambda Legal to collaborate on one of TLDEF’s signature programs, the Name Change Project. The Project provides free legal name change services to low-income transgender people through partnerships with some of the nation’s most prestigious law firms and corporate law departments. TLDEF will continue to run its program in New York City, while Lambda Legal will work with TLDEF to continue developing the initiative in Atlanta and throughout Georgia.

(New York, October 30, 2017) – Lambda Legal, joined by Family Equality Council and 11 other organizations, today submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission detailing the multiple everyday experiences of hundreds of LGBT individuals, same-sex couples and their families who have faced discrimination.

(Louisville, KY, October 26, 2017) — Yesterday Kentucky Family Court Judge W. Mitchell Nance notified Governor Matthew G. Bevin and the Commonwealth of Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission of his resignation. In May, Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kentucky, Kentucky’s Fairness Campaign, and University of Louisville Law Professor Sam Marcosson filed a complaint against Judge Nance for violating Kentucky’s Code of Judicial Conduct by recusing himself from any adoption proceedings involving lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. 

(Lafayette, LA, October 24, 2017)—Today, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on behalf of William “Liam” Pierce, after the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s office rescinded a job offer as a Sheriff’s Deputy because he is a person living with HIV.

(Harrisburg, PA, October 23, 2017) — Pennsylvania lawmakers this week are considering a discriminatory and harmful amendment to the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) reauthorization legislation that would deny lower-income Pennsylvania transgender youth access to any transition-related health care services, including counseling. Lambda Legal and the lead client in its successful challenge to an anti-transgender policy at Pine-Richland High School in suburban Pittsburgh issued the following statements:

(San Francisco, CA, October 19, 2017) – Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in the case of Erotic Service Provider Legal, Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) v. Gascón, a case challenging California laws that criminalize sex work. Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of ESPLERP on behalf of entities with expertise and experience working with people living with HIV, laying out how these laws undermine public health.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Transgender people in North Carolina will not be barred from using public restrooms and other facilities that match their gender identity under a consent decree proposed today by Governor Roy Cooper, Attorney General Josh Stein, and the advocacy groups representing LGBT North Carolinians who are challenging state anti-LGBT laws H.B. 2 and H.B. 142 in a federal lawsuit. The judge in the case must agree to the terms of the proposed consent decree before it becomes law.

Washington, DC – Today, Lambda Legal blasted Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Senators challenged Sessions’ efforts to roll back the civil rights of the most vulnerable Americans, including a number of policies, statements, and actions directly targeting LGBT people, women, people of color, religious minorities, and immigrants.

Washington, DC – Today, Lambda Legal and 35 other national, state, and local LGBT advocacy groups sent a letter to members of the United States Senate strongly urging them to demand that President Trump immediately withdraw his nomination of Jeff Mateer to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

NEW YORK (October 15, 2017) The New York Times today reported that the Department of Justice has assigned a federal prosecutor to assist in the hate crime prosecution of Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson’s murderer.