NCLR launched with the Human Rights Campaign and Center for HIV Law and Policy the #EndBadHivLaws Campaign. The campaign raises awareness and works to end laws criminalizing those living with HIV.

NCLR works at the local, state and federal levels to ensure that LGBTQ prisoners are as safely housed as possible and have access to life-saving medical care.

LGBTQ people housed in prisons and jails face dire problems related to their sexuality and gender identity. They are often placed in segregated housing “for their own protection,” which deprives them of jobs, education, and other programming that could shorten their sentences and better prepare them for release.

When prisoners are placed in solitary confinement, they typically spend 23 hours a day alone in their cells with only an hour to exercise or bathe (also alone). Solitary confinement is extremely dangerous to prisoners’ mental health. Transgender prisoners also encounter serious problems obtaining hormones and other medical care, and are at extreme risk of being sexually assaulted by staff or other inmates.

We will continue to work with local, state, and federal officials to ensure that LGBTQ prisoners are as safe as possible, that transgender prisoners are housed in accordance with their gender identity, and that LGBTQ prisoners have access to proper medical care.

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).

NCLR filed a friend of the court brief arguing that it is unconstitutional for attorneys to strike jurors for discriminatory reasons. In the underlying criminal case, the prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to strike two openly gay men from participating on the jury, in part out of his belief that openly gay men might be biased against the victim because he was “not out of the closet.”

NCLR filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) in this case involving the Florida Department of Children and Families’ (DCF) blanket policies of denying transition-related care to civil detainees.