Program areas at NCLR
Legal: NCLR is litigating challenges to Medicaid's exclusion of surgical treatments for gender dysphoria, as these discriminatory exclusions violate standards of care and federal law. In Alabama, SB 184 criminalizes parents who seek to obtain essential medical care for their transgender children's needs. It demands up to 10 years in prison as penalty for anyone, including doctors and parents, who assists in getting the care these young people need. NCLR successfully petitioned a federal district court judge to issue a ruling blocking enforcement of Alabama SB 184 while a legal challenge to the law proceeds. The suit, Boe v. Marshall, is brought by four Alabama parents from across the state on the grounds that it strips them of the right to make important decisions about their children's healthcare. Our Rural Pride project has built a network of attorneys and organizations willing to provide culturally competent legal counsel at low or no cost and offer local support. Not only have these networks strengthened our movement across rural regions, but we have been able to refer hundreds of our helpline callers to these attorneys in their states. Our legal Helpline provides free individualized information and referrals in response to approximately 1,000 requests each year. This year, NCLR's Rural Pride program partnered with ACLU of Mississippi to develop training materials for pro bono attorneys assisting LGBTQ clients in the state, and provided technical assistance in hosting their first name and gender marker change clinic. We hosted a Rural Pride summit in North Dakota, expanding programming to include a panel specifically focused on BIPOC issues for the first time and created a part time youth internship program for the summit in partnership with North Dakota Human Rights Coalition. And our Rural pride attorneys presented a panel at the Equal Justice Conference (the national annual meeting of legal aid attorneys and public defenders) about successful strategies to provide legal services to low-income LGBTQ clients in rural communities, partnering with California Rural Legal Assistance, New Mexico Legal Aid, and Lone Star Legal Aid, three movement aligned legal aid organizations also focused on rural communities.
Youth: This year, as school districts across the country faced hostile protests of LGBTQ inclusive education, NCLR partnered with the nation's leading LGBTQ organizations (GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), GLSEN and PFLAG National) to create SafeSchoolsForAll.org a new resource for students who are experiencing discrimination, bullying and harassment based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression to help defend their rights. Safe Schools for All is a unique resource for students, parents, and supporters to take action to help make schools safe and inclusive of all students, and is rooted in guidance from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education. NCLR, along with Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC, King & Spalding LLP, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), asked a federal court to block Alabama bill SB 184 - which makes it a felony to provide affirming healthcare to transgender youth. We are representing five Alabama parents from across the state and two healthcare providers. SB 184, signed into law by Governor Ivey, punishes parents and their children's doctors for consenting to and providing well-established essential medical care for their transgender children. NCLR continues to represent transgender teenagers in Arizona who were denied coverage for top surgery. Arizona is refusing to cover this medically necessary treatment because of a categorical exclusion on covering surgical treatments for gender dysphoria in the state's Medicaid regulations. NCLR is also challenging Arizona's surgical requirement for correcting gender markers on birth certificates as not all people who wish to change their legal gender want or need surgery. In spite of the fact that transgender students make up an extremely small percentage of students participating in school sports, laws restricting or prohibiting trans kids from playing with their teammates are becoming extremely popular among far right politicians. NCLR is closely monitoring proposed bills in many states and filing legal challenges on behalf of trans athletes and their families. In Utah, two families filed a legal challenge in state court against House Bill 11, which prohibits transgender girls from competing in school sports. The law, which the Legislature enacted over Governor Spencer Cox's veto, singles out transgender girls in order to exclude them from girls' sports. It bars every transgender girl from competing on a girls' team regardless of her medical care or individual circumstances. The students included in the challenge are transgender girls who are current public-school students, love sports, and want to participate in sports with other girls.
Born Perfect: We are investing deeply in the current array of cases challenging laws banning conversion therapy that are working their way through the courts, making sure that the strongest possible body of case law is established and that intensive and strategic public education helps create an environment that strongly favors protecting youth from these harmful practices before these cases reach the highest court. NCLR has been a leader in defending these laws alongside state and local governments, and is involved in active cases in Florida and in Washington State. In addition to ongoing litigation, Born Perfect supports a network of 385 survivors in all 50 states, providing legal support and media training so these survivors can become advocates to end the practice by educating the public, testifying at public hearings and reaching out to religious and mental health communities to share their experiences. Born Perfect was proud to partner with Enfranchisement to produce the short film "Bobby's Big Problem" featuring a celebrity cast, including Patton Oswalt, D'Arcy Carden, Jasika Nicole, and River Butcher. The video tells the story of Bobby, played by River Butcher, who recounts his conversion therapy experience to his friend Renee. The film satirizes a conversion therapy session to highlight its absurdity and provide a glimpse into this dangerous practice.