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Our Voices

NCLR Joins Coalition Asking U.S. Supreme Court to Lift Ban on Urgently Needed Immigration Reforms

  The National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR) has joined a coalition of more than 300 civil rights, immigration, labor, and social service groups in an amicus brief in U.S. v. Texas urging the U.S. Supreme Court to allow President Obama’s executive actions on immigration to move forward. The filing of the amicus brief comes four months after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction put in place by a Texas federal district court that blocked...

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BIG NEWS: U.S. Supreme Court Unanimously Reverses Alabama’s Assault on LGBTQ Adoptive Parents

Monday, in a ruling that will protect LGBTQ parents across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court sharply rebuked the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to recognize a Georgia adoption by a lesbian mother, our client. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in our case was unusual in three ways. First, it reversed the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision “summarily”—that is, without any briefing or oral argument, relying solely on the initial petition asking the Court to hear the case. Second, the decision...

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Gender Affirming Services for all California Foster Children

NCLR is proud to collaborate with Family Builders and the Center for the Study of Social Policy on getR.E.A.L. California–an initiative aimed at promoting the healthy sexual and identity development of all children involved with the California child welfare system. The initiative partners have produced a new issue brief aimed at helping child welfare professionals support and affirm transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) children in foster care. As numerous other state legislatures...

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Supreme Court Order Marks the End of Legal Challenges to New Jersey’s Ban on Conversion Therapy for Minors

On February 29, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Doe v. Christie, a case challenging New Jersey’s law prohibiting state-licensed therapists from engaging in the discredited practice of conversion therapy with patients under 18 years of age. The Supreme Court’s order allows the law to remain in full effect and marks the final chapter in a nearly three-year-long series of challenges filed by Liberty Counsel, an anti-LGBTQ legal group. NCLR was proud to join Garden State Equality...

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What the Supreme Court’s Abortion Case Means For LGBTQ Community

On March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole, the legal challenge to Texas House Bill 2 that severely restricts a woman’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy. This will be the first time the Supreme Court takes up the issue of abortion in more than 20 years and will be only the third abortion case that the high court has heard in its entire history. Setting aside the debate over abortion, the reality is that the state of Texas is restricting...

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Alex’s Story: A Triumph of Courage, Authenticity, and Hope

When I first heard the story of what was happening to Alex in St. George, Utah a few years ago, I could not believe it. I’m from Utah, and I know it can be tough for LGBTQ kids there, but I had no idea that charlatans could torture and keep prisoner a young girl based on her refusal to deny who she was. Alex’s parents’ attempts to change her sexual orientation were wrong, misguided, and ill informed, but what makes  Alex’s story—detailed in her book, “Saving Alex,” out March...

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We NEED Your Help in South Dakota

One of the most horrific anti-transgender bills in the country will move before South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard for consideration as early as today. House Bill 1008 forces transgender students to use a separate bathroom from all other students and prohibits schools from having supportive policies treating them the same as other students. If Governor Dennis Daugaard signs it into law, South Dakota will be the first state to pass this shameful attack on transgender students, but trust me: It...

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The LGBTQ Movement Must Help to Reclaim Roe

Today the nation commemorates the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. Today, as this fundamental right faces unprecedented attacks, it is time that we reclaim the promise of Roefor this and future generations. Roe held that one of the most personal and intimate decisions one can make — whether and when to bear a child — belongs to the individual. While the precise contours of the right and the...

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First they came for the refugees …

Over the past holiday weekend, as many of us relaxed with our families and celebrated the beginning of a new year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided the homes of Central American refugees in Texas, Georgia and North Carolina and arrested 121 people, many of them mothers with young children. Sadly, there is nothing new about the ICE raids. They are a component of the Obama administration’s enforcement policy that targets these refugees who arrived in the United States in...

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NCLR And Other LGBT, Racial Justice, and Health Advocacy Groups File Brief in U.S. Supreme Court Challenge to Texas Abortion Restrictions

This week, NCLR and a coalition of 13 other LGBT, racial justice, and health equity organizations filed an amicus brief in Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down draconian restrictions on abortion providers enacted by the State of Texas in 2013 which, if upheld, would lead to the closing of most abortion clinics in the state. The brief urges the Court to carefully scrutinize the state’s asserted justification for the law, just as the Court has done with other...

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