In 2018, the State of Washington passed a law prohibiting state-licensed therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient under 18 years old. Every leading medical and mental health organization in the country has warned that these practices do not work and put young people at risk of serious harm, including depression, substance abuse, and suicide. In 2021, an anti-LGBTQ legal group filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new law on behalf of Brian...
LaNesha Matthews and Kyresha LeFever were a same-sex couple who had twins together using assisted reproduction. Their children were conceived using Kyresha’s eggs, and LaNesha gave birth, a process sometimes called egg sharing or reciprocal IVF. The parents broke up when the twins were young but coparented and shared custody for years until a dispute arose when the twins were 5-years-old. Kyresha sought shared custody, which the trial court initially granted after determining that Kyresha is a...
When Indiana began allowing same-sex couples to marry in 2015 after the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that same-sex couples have a right to marry in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Indiana Department of Vital Records refused to place same-sex spouses on their children’s birth certificates as they do for different-sex spouses. Eight female same-sex couples who conceived children through sperm donation sought the right to be recognized on their children’s birth certificates in federal...
Plaintiffs D.T., Jane Doe, and Helen Roe are transgender children who unable to correct the gender markers on their birth certificates because of Arizona’s discriminatory laws. Arizona requires transgender people to undergo surgery to obtain a birth certificate that matches who they are. That surgery requirement is particularly harmful to transgender young people, like D.T., Jane, and Helen, because it is not medically appropriate for them to undergo those surgeries at their...
D.H. and John Doe are transgender teenagers who require male chest reconstruction surgery to treat their gender dysphoria. Arizona is refusing to cover this medically necessary treatment because of a categorical exclusion on covering surgical treatments for gender dysphoria in the state’s Medicaid regulations. That discriminatory exclusion violates well-established standards of care and federal law. On August 6, 2020, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and the National Health Law...
Katharine Prescott, holds a photo of her late son Kyler Prescott, in the memorial garden they created in his memory at their home in Vista, California September 21, 2016. About Kyler On September 26, 2016, the mother of a transgender teenaged boy who was admitted into Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego (RCHSD) for inpatient care filed a lawsuit against the hospital for discrimination against her son. Katharine Prescott took her 14-year-old son, Kyler Prescott, to RCHSD in early April...
Plaintiff Santi Ceballos On March 28, 2019, Equality Arizona, represented by National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lambda Legal, along with law professor Clifford Rosky and pro bono counsel Perkins Coie LLP, filed a federal lawsuit challenging Arizona’s anti-LGBTQ curriculum law, which bars public school students from receiving medically accurate, age-appropriate information about non-heterosexual people in their health education classes. Arizona law prohibits instruction in HIV/AIDS...
On February 26, 2020, NCLR and Lambda Legal, along with private counsel Womble Bond Dickinson, Brazil & Burke, and law professor Clifford Rosky, filed a federal lawsuit challenging a South Carolina statute that prohibits public school health education from including any discussion of same-sex relationships except in the context of sexually transmitted diseases. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Gender and Sexuality Alliance, an organization of high school students at a public magnet...
NCLR, along with co-counsel Rifkin Law Office, Hadsell Stormer & Renick LLP, and Ferguson Durham, PLLC, represents Adree Edmo, a Native American transgender woman in the custody of the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC). Adree Edmo After a three-day evidentiary hearing on Ms. Edmo’s motion for a preliminary injunction, Judge B. Lynn Winmill issued an order on December 13, 2018 requiring IDOC and IDOC’s medical provider Corizon to provide Ms. Edmo with medically urgent...
Jane Doe is a transgender student at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio. She was a student in Professor Meriwether’s Political Philosophy class in the spring 2018 semester. Because of his religious beliefs, Professor Meriwether refused to use female honorifics and pronouns when referring to Jane in class. Jane filed a Title IX complaint with the university. After completing an investigation into Professor Meriwether’s conduct, the university decided to place a discipline...
