On July 7, 2014, NCLR and Boise attorneys Deborah A. Ferguson and Craig Durham filed a lawsuit on behalf of Madelynn Lee Taylor, a 74-year-old military veteran who challenged Idaho state laws prohibiting her from being buried in the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery with her late wife, Jean Mixner.

When B.H. was in second grade, his peers began bullying and ostracizing him because he’s transgender. Worse, some parents organized a campaign to force the school district to stop treating B.H. as male, and to prohibit him from using the boys’ restroom. It didn’t take long before B.H. began showing significant psychological distress and his mom asked NCLR for help. NCLR worked with the school district to safeguard B.H.’s right to learn in a safe and welcoming environment.

On January 20, 2015, NCLR and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) filed a joint friend-of-the-court brief supporting former Saks Fifth Avenue employee Leyth Jamal, who filed a case alleging that Saks discriminated against her for being transgender. In a request to dismiss the lawsuit, Saks argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect transgender workers.

Nashville passed a law in 2011 that people cannot be fired from their jobs or denied services simply because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, only to have state lawmakers, working with a virulently anti-LGBTQ group, take it away. In June 2011, NCLR filed a lawsuit challenging this outrageous abuse of the legislative process in Tennessee.

On May 14, 2014, Gildas Dousset, a student at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, filed an appeal in state court seeking recognition of his marriage to his husband. The appeal argued that Florida’s laws barring recognition of the valid out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples violate the United States Constitution.

Sergio Garcia’s parents brought him from Mexico to the United States when was an infant. Although the application Sergio’s father filed for a visa on Sergio’s behalf was approved in 1995, Sergio has not been able to apply to adjust his immigration status. Sergio completed law school and passed the California Bar Exam, but was denied admission to the bar due to his immigration status.

In 2007, The Washington State Board of Pharmacy began requiring that pharmacists provide patients with prescribed medications if those medications are in stock. Additionally, pursuant to a long-standing rule governing which medications a pharmacy should have on its shelves, pharmacies would have to begin stocking Plan B, a prescription contraceptive. A pharmacy and two pharmacists sued the Washington State Board of Pharmacy alleging that its rules violated their religious liberty.

The National Center for LGBTQ Rights is committed to increasing access to fair housing for the LGBTQ community across the country.

NCLR has worked extremely closely with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to help shape fair housing policies that impact our community. In 2010, HUD announced that it would begin interpreting the Fair Housing Act’s prohibition against discrimination based on sex to include discrimination based on gender identity and nonconformity with sex stereotypes. This announcement represented a huge victory and creates significant protections for transgender, gender nonconforming, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. In order to publicize this announcement, NLCR partnered with HUD to create a training for HUD staff on discrimination that LGBTQ people face and how best to work with the LGBTQ community.

NCLR has also been a lead partner with HUD in developing its LGBTQ Equal Access Rule, which extends crucial protections against housing discrimination to the LGBTQ community. NCLR wrote comments on behalf of over 30 LGBT, civil rights, and fair housing organizations in response to a draft version of this rule, and worked closely with HUD behind the scenes in the crafting of the final rule.

The final rule is historic. It prohibits housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in public housing, HUD-backed mortgages, and HUD-funded programs and services. Many of the changes NCLR suggested from the proposed rule stage were implemented into the final rule. The final rule was released in January 2012 and went into effect March 5, 2012. In 2016, HUD issued an amendment to the Rule to clarify that transgender persons seeking shelter at HUD-funded homeless shelters must be housed according to their gender identity. Unfortunately, the Trump administration is seeking to roll back these protections in homeless shelters. NCLR and many partner organizations and individuals have opposed these changes with HUD and we will continue to advocate for federal housing policy that is inclusive and protects everyone.

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