Plaintiffs Helen Roe, James Poe, and Carl Voe are transgender children who are 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 because it is not medically appropriate for them to undergo those surgeries at their age. Having to use...
Our Voices
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...
Gender and Sexuality Alliance v. Spearman
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...
Christina Ketcham is a 60-year-old transgender woman who worked for Clatsop County for nearly thirty years. She started her transition over four years ago and continues to experience significant distress from the incongruence between her typically masculine facial features and her identity as a woman. To alleviate that distress, Christina’s treating healthcare providers determined that certain facial feminization procedures are medically necessary to treat her gender dysphoria. But, the health...
A.E. is a gay man from Honduras who immigrated to the US in 2006. He has spent over 10 years of overcoming hardship and recovering from past trauma, including being targeted by violence and death threats in Honduras because of his sexual orientation. A.E. is now thriving and has a wonderful husband who was included in his asylum petition. With much preparation work from NCLR and a lot of emotional investment from A.E. and his husband, they were able to present their case at the asylum office,...
J. is a gay man in his twenties from Mexico who has a disability. He and his family immigrated to the U.S. in 2018 and were apprehended at the border. They were placed in detention and most of his family was sent back to Mexico. However, he and his sister who has a small child were allowed to stay and were able to apply for asylum. J’s case was heard by an Immigration Judge in San Francisco. With the assistance of Chelsea HaleyNelson, of counsel, NCLR was able to prepare J. for his...
