All
Find Your State
Know the laws in your state that protect LGBT people and people living with HIV.
Legal Help Desk
Know Your Rights
A lawsuit against the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) on behalf of a 65-year-old gay man seeking spousal survivor’s benefits based on his 43-year relationship with his husband, who died seven months after Arizona began allowing same-sex couples to marry. The lawsuit filed on behalf of Michael Ely in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona argues that SSA’s imposition of a nine-month marriage requirement for social security survivor’s benefits is unconstitutional where same-sex couples were not able to be married for nine months because of discriminatory marriage laws.
Lambda Legal and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Justice and BOP seeking all documents and communications connected to its decision to alter the Manual. The changes weaken protections for transgender people who are incarcerated.
On November 12, 2018, Lambda Legal and Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service announced the successful settlement of a 2015 lawsuit filed on behalf of John Dorn against the Michigan Department of Corrections. Mr. Dorn’s settlement with the MDOC includes substantive changes to the MDOC policy directive that allowed disproportionate punishment of incarcerated people living with HIV without adequate justification, an MDOC review and reconsideration of other individuals who were classified to administrative segregation under the former policy, and a monetary settlement.
Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit challenging Kansas’ refusal to correct the gender marker on birth certificates for transgender individuals. Kansas is one of just three states, along with Tennessee and Ohio, that has yet to change this extremely regressive and outdated policy.
Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Third Circuit in a lawsuit over the application of nondiscrimination laws to faith-based providers of child welfare services. Our brief, filed on behalf of organizations serving LGBTQ youth, highlights the harm to LGBTQ youth of allowing child placing agencies to turn away same-sex couples.
On September 25, 2018, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) on behalf of a 63-year-old lesbian seeking spousal survivor’s benefits based on her relationship with her partner of 27 years, who died in 2006 before same-sex couples in the State of Washington were able to marry. The lawsuit filed on behalf of Helen Thornton in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington argues that SSA’s exclusion of same-sex couples from survivor’s benefits based on their inability to marry is unconstitutional.
Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN filed a lawsuit on behalf of a sergeant in the D.C. Army National Guard who was denied the opportunity to serve as an officer and faces possible discharge from the United States armed services because he is living with HIV. The lawsuit challenges the Pentagon’s current policies preventing enlistment, deployment or commissioning as an officer if a person is living with HIV, and likely would affect implementation of the new “Deploy or Get Out” policy unveiled by the Trump administration in February.
On September 13, 2018, Lambda Legal and American Oversight, a non-partisan, nonprofit ethics watchdog committed to transparency and accountability in the executive branch, filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to produce documents related to Supreme Court Justice Nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s work in the George W. Bush administration, particularly his involvement in policies that discriminated against LGBTQ children, families and relationships. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
As the U.S. Senate started the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Lambda Legal and American Oversight filed a lawsuit to compel the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to immediately produce records related to Kavanaugh’s work in the George W. Bush White House. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenges the agencies’ failure to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed in August that sought documents related to Kavanaugh’s involvement in Bush administration policies that discriminated against LGBTQ children, families and relationships.
In a groundbreaking decision, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a landlord may be held liable under the Fair Housing Act for failing to protect a tenant from known, discriminatory harassment at the hands of other tenants, reinstating Lambda Legal’s federal lawsuit on behalf of lesbian senior, Marsha Wetzel, against Glen St. Andrew Living Community in Niles, Illinois. The suit claims that the facility failed to protect Wetzel, a resident of the facility, from harassment, discrimination and violence she has endured at the hands of other residents because of her sex and sexual orientation.
Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s ban on military service by transgender individuals. The lawsuit—brought in response to President Trump’s formal issuance of directions to military authorities late Friday—six currently serving members of the armed services; three who seek to enlist; the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy organization; Gender Justice League, a gender and sexuality civil and human rights organization, headquartered in Seattle; and the American Military Partner Association (AMPA).