Transgender Law Center

In response to violence and discrimination that contribute to disproportionate poverty, homelessness, lack of access to healthcare, and other barriers for transgender and gender nonconforming people (TGNC), Transgender Law Center (TLC) works to:

INCREASE social acceptance and support for TGNC people and policies through public education, leadership development, and coalition building: We do this through a diverse range of programs that develop leadership and organizing skills, link trans activists and organizations, tell authentic stories, and shift public opinion, elevating the voices and experiences of TGNC people within other progressive movements.

SECURE and defend comprehensive legal protections for TGNC people: TLC’s legal and public policy efforts leverage impact litigation and legal advocacy, administrative advocacy, and mobilization to make meaningful change.

BUILD capacity for TGNC people to have increased access to legal and support services: Our Legal Services Project responds to the urgent need for accurate legal information, through a national helpline and separate immigration triage system; recruitment and training of attorneys; know-your-rights publications and resources; and community workshops and legal clinics.

IMPACT LITIGATION AND ADVOCACY: We litigate impact cases addressing employment, education, public accommodations, prisons, and more, to strengthen precedents that affirm TGNC recognition and equality. Our Detention Project specifically focuses on trans people in prison and immigration detention. We also engage in advocacy at local, state, and national levels, pioneering strategies where the policy environment is ripe for change, and sharing lessons learned to enable replication.

LEGAL SERVICES PROJECT: TLC supports attorneys in effectively representing TGNC people, maintains a legal helpline in English and in Spanish, and organizes legal clinics. Our helpline responds to urgent community needs and keeps TLC’s legal department in touch with frontline issues faced by TGNC people across the country. We provide a national calendar of legal clinics on our web site, and develop and disseminate critical know-your-rights materials.

NATIONAL TRAINING INSTITUTE: Through NTI’s adaptable curricula, TLC builds the skills of local activists with a particular emphasis on those in the Southeast, Midwest, and Southwest. NTI directly challenges the isolation in which many of these activists work by connecting them to a growing national network of peers.

TLC@SONG: TLC@SONG brings together TLC’s long history of legal, policy and trans-specific expertise with the Southern base-building and organizing of Southerners on New Ground (SONG), focusing on policy advocacy, legal work, public education, and movement-building in the region.

POSITIVELY TRANS (T+) : This program amplifies the of trans people affected by HIV; identifies systems gaps affecting trans communities, and develops a response plan to establish protective laws; and challenges social exclusion, stigma, economic marginalization, and unmet healthcare needs. Positively Trans has published a groundbreaking national needs assessment of trans people living with HIV; provided digital storytelling training to dozens of activists; and is building a growing network of HIV+ trans activists across the country, with an emphasis on trans women of color.

IMMIGRATION: TLC partners with local and national immigrant-rights groups, advances a litigation strategy to end trans detention, and builds a body of case law addressing the specific needs of TGNC immigrants. We also engage in strategic convenings, provide legal services, and develop publications addressing TGNC immigrant issues and needs.

THE TRUTH PROGRAM: A collaboration with GSA Network, TRUTH aims to build empathy, understanding, and a movement for TGNC youth to share their stories in their own words and in their own way, and to advocate for their rights. TRUTH supports a national youth council of 30 members with training, technical assistance, and social media campaigning; these young people then support, train, and mobilize their peers.

TLC has a 20-year track record of successful community-rooted work and legal strategies. By developing the knowledge, skills, and relationships that help us rise to meet diverse movement needs, we have been able to more effectively leverage legal and advocacy work in conjunction with movement-building, organizing, and leadership development strategies. Current TLC leadership includes Cecilia Chung, a nationally-recognized advocate for human rights, health equity, and LGBT equality; Kris Hayashi, with a 20-year legacy of leadership and organizing as a public trans person of color; and other movement leaders: transgenderlawcenter.org/about/staff-and-board

In its first 20 years, Transgender Law Center has grown from a fiscally-sponsored project to a significant, independent, national organization. TLC's advocacy and precedent-setting litigation victories—in areas of employment, prison conditions, education, immigration, healthcare, and more—have served to protect and advance the rights and opportunities of TGNC people across the country, as TLC also equips thousands of individual community members annually, building toward a long-term, national, trans-led movement for justice.

TLC has filled a significant gap in organizing training and leadership development to support movement-building and collective strategy. Early Transgender Leadership Summits in California and the 2015 national gathering of more than 100 trans leaders (mostly trans people of color) addressing issues of violence, supported the development of TLC's current National Training Institute, which has supported and developed hundreds of activists and leaders across the country. TLC's Positively Trans (T+) program has organized and collaborated in significant trainings that equip trans people—and especially trans women of color—to play a stronger role in local, national, and international efforts to address HIV and reduce disparate impact. TLC's collaborative TRUTH program with GSA Network is intentionally building community, support, and leadership for trans youth through national and regional programming.

TLC has become an increasingly strong partner in the struggle for immigrants rights, lifting up the voices and experiences of transgender immigrants while developing and successfully deploying novel legal strategies, including approaches that have set a precedent for all migrant survivors of trafficking. TLC has placed specific focus on documenting abuses in immigration detention and in prison, advocating for improved policies and conditions, and an end to detention for transgender immigrants, given the overwhelming abuses they face in detention.

When it was clear that no one was collecting data to make a case for change to policymakers and the public, TLC partnered with researchers to gather quality data that could be compared to broad national data sets—creating groundbreaking data on experiences of trans people in California, trans people across the country affected by HIV/AIDS, and trans people in the South. We have also undertaken groundbreaking messaging research to understand how best to strengthen public understanding and empathy for trans people, especially with regard to healthcare access.