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Payne-Elliott sued the archdiocese for compelling Cathedral High School to fire him or lose its Catholic status because Payne-Elliott was married to a man.
In November 2021, Lambda Legal along with co-counsel filed a lawsuit on behalf of 14-year-old Luc Esquivel who is banned from participating the boys’ golf team at his high school in Knoxville, Tennessee because he is transgender.
Lambda Legal and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, together with the law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, along with several HHS officials and programs, for enabling and sanctioning discrimination against LGBTQ foster parent applicants by organizations that receive taxpayer funds to care for unaccompanied refugee children.
Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Jesse Moore, urging the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a district court’s order that dismissed her complaint for failure to state a claim.
Lambda Legal and the law firm Williams & Connolly LLP filed an amicus brief on behalf of LGBTQ+ rights organizations urging the Supreme Court to uphold a New York gun regulation that would require individuals carrying guns to show proper cause for doing so, arguing that LGBTQ+ people — and especially transgender and LGBTQ+ people of Color — are disproportionately impacted by gun violence, and that sweeping away regulations entirely would further endanger the lives of LGBTQ+ people who have been targeted with deadly hate crimes.
Lambda Legal represents Jason Yoakam, a transgender man incarcerated at Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women (FCCW) in Troy, Virginia. The Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) has denied a bilateral mastectomy, or chest surgery, for Jason on the basis that it is not medically necessary. VDOC has also denied requests that Mr. Yoakam receive mental health care for treatment of gender dysphoria from qualified mental health providers and other reasonable accommodations.
Lambda Legal and the University of Denver School of Law, Civil Rights Clinic filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Divinity Rios urging the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a district court’s order that dismissed her complaint despite controlling Supreme Court precedent in Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994) that established that prison officials have a constitutional duty to protect vulnerable incarcerated people from sexual violence.
“I know how hurtful a law like this is to all kids like me who just want to play sports with their classmates, and I’m doing this for them. Trans kids deserve better.”
Plaintiffs Facing Foster Care in Alaska (FFCA), Family Equality, True Colors United, Inc., and Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) collectively challenge the Grants Rule issued by the United States Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) on January 12, 2021 that modifies a regulation finalized in 2016, which set uniform nondiscrimination protections for beneficiaries of and participants in services and programs funded by HHS grants.
On January 19, 2021, Lambda Legal and a coalition of service and advocacy groups filed suit against the Trump administration for rolling back religious freedom protections that required faith-based organizations providing critical, taxpayer-funded services (like food and shelter) to inform recipients of their legal rights to be free from discrimination, not to have to attend religious programming, and to have the opportunity to get a referral for an alternative provider.
Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Meggan Sommerville, a transgender woman, in her almost decade-long fight with her employer, Hobby Lobby, to gain access to the women’s facilities at work, facilities that match her gender identity.