NCLR has written a new practice guide for the Annie E. Casey Foundation entitled “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth in the Juvenile Justice System,” which provides juvenile justice agencies the tools they need to ensure the safety and well-being of LGBTQ youth in their care. This groundbreaking publication documents the vulnerability of LGBTQ youth in our communities and in juvenile justice systems. Social stigma, family rejection, and discrimination subject LGBTQ youth to increased...
Our Voices
(This letter was a collaboration between Mr. Hanley and the names listed below) Dear Michael, We, black men, write this letter to you out of love. We can only imagine the burdens you have had to carry personally: experiences of isolation, shame, rejection and moral judgment. But we want you to know that in our lives we have had to carry those burdens as well. We write this letter to you, understanding the actions taken against you have come at the expense of your humanity. And we write this...
I received a letter from a prisoner a few weeks ago that still haunts me. The prisoner, a transgender woman of color, tried to remove her own testicles after she was repeatedly denied medical care for her gender dysphoria. While this might seem extreme to people outside of prison, these incidents of “self-surgery” happen regularly in prisons and jails across the country. There are thousands of transgender prisoners housed in correctional facilities who need basic medical care, protection from...
(San Francisco, CA, December 18, 2014)—Today, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have released “Know Your Rights: Laws, Court Decisions, and Advocacy Tips to Protect Transgender Prisoners,” a new guide that provides vital information for transgender prisoners. Download the guide here. NCLR attorneys litigate on behalf of incarcerated transgender people across the country to protect their rights to safety and medical care. And while we...
Today, International Transgender Day of Remembrance is being observed worldwide. It is day to honor the memory of transgender people we have lost to senseless acts of hatred and violence and to reflect on the transgender community’s incredible strength and resilience. Both globally and in the United States, transgender people—and transgender women of color in particular—are assaulted and often murdered with impunity, simply because of who they are. In most cases, these crimes are not...
The plight of Jane Doe, a 16-year-old transgender girl in the custody of Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families (DCF), should provoke national outrage. Jane’s story represents one of the most devastating examples of how public systems fail the most vulnerable youth in their care and custody. Removed from her family at the tender age of five, Jane has endured unrelenting brutality and abuse while in the custody of the system charged with protecting her. Despite the fact that Jane...
(San Francisco, CA, September 30, 2011)—A settlement was announced today in the case of Vanessa Adams, a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) inmate at FMC Butner in North Carolina, who has gender identity disorder (GID). Adams sued BOP in order to receive appropriate treatment for her GID. Adam’s challenge to BOP’s treatment of transgender prisoners has resulted in BOP ending its so-called “freeze frame” policy in which treatment for any person with GID is kept frozen at the level provided at the...
Report Now Available To Facilities Across the Country (San Francisco, CA, March 17, 2011)—A pioneering new report authored by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) urges group care facilities to reassess their treatment of transgender and gender non-conforming youth and to adopt policies and practices that provide these youth with appropriate, fair and equal care. The report, released today and called “A Place of Respect: A Guide for Group...
