Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people are in America's child welfare and juvenile justice systems in disproportionate numbers. According to the Lambda Legal report Youth in the Margins, one of every 10 to 20 adolescents in out-of-home care is lesbian or gay, and the National Network of Runaway and Youth Services estimates that 20 to 40 percent of young people who become homeless each year are lesbian, gay or bisexual. And yet, very few state foster care agencies maintain policies prohibiting discrimination against foster care youth on the basis of sexual orientation or require training for foster parents or foster care staff on sensitivity to LGBTQ youth. As a result, LGBT youth in care services often face neglect, discrimination and abuse at the hands of the child welfare systems charged to protect them.

Lambda Legal’s HIV Project has helped maintain or expand protections across the country for people living with HIV by pursuing impact litigation, education and advocacy to combat bias and stereotypes and to ensure that people are treated fairly by employers, health care providers and others. We also apply our legal expertise to policy issues affecting people living with HIV — including HIV testing, collection of private information about behaviors and sexual partners, access to medical care and treatment and HIV prevention.

LGBT people and people living with HIV face particular heath challenges and difficulties obtaining appropriate health care due to hostility and discrimination. Difficulties in obtaining health care and health insurance can be especially devastating for those already most vulnerable, including those with limited income, newer immigrants, those who speak limited English, those with less education, many people of color, and many seniors.   Lambda Legal helps LGBT people and people with HIV fight back when they are in lawfully denied coverage or care or when their relationships or health care choices are not given the respect they’re entitled to under the law.

Despite recent advances, people in this country are still being fired, harassed and targeted at work because they are LGBT. Workplace issues are the number one concern among callers to Lambda Legal’s Help Desk.

For years, Lambda Legal has been explaining to courts that Title VII, when properly understood, protects LGBT employees. Three of Lambda Legal’s successful efforts in 2014, in federal courts in Seattle, Chicago, and Washington D.C., were cited by the EEOC in Baldwin v. Foxx. In April 2017, Lambda Legal secured a victory at the full Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation violates federal civil rights law.

Transgender people suffer persistent inequalities in aspects of life that intersect with all of Lambda Legal's issue area priorities. Transgender people experience rampant workplace discrimination, may be met with challenges to their parental relationships, lack sufficient access to quality healthcare free from discrimination and face difficulties in obtaining appropriate name and gender designations on their identity documents. Lambda Legal expands and defends protections for transgender people under federal, state and local laws and other policies.

Fair and impartial courts are a cornerstone of our democracy. The Fair Courts Project provides tools and information to counter harmful attacks on the courts that threaten LGBT and HIV-related civil rights and jeopardize the ability of our courts to make decisions based on constitutional and legal principles—not politics or popular opinion.

Lambda Legal defends the rights of LGBT and HIV-positive seniors who face discrimination related to their sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status, including discrimination by staff and residents at senior centers; denial of housing; denial of the ability for same-sex couples to share a room in an assisted living facility or nursing home; disrespect of gender identity including while incapacitated or at death; and denial of equal Social Security benefits and survivor benefits as compared to their heterosexual counterparts.