The Transgender Legal Defense Fund: What You Need to Know
The purpose of the Transgender Legal Defense Fund is to protect, defend and advance the civil rights of the transgender community in every way possible, and to achieve a greater level of awareness for both the transgender community’s needs and legal issues, as well as the individuals’ legal protections afforded under the law.
The Fund’s goals are simple: We will accomplish these goals by vetting, counseling, and if necessary, providing pro bono, target legal representation to, transgender individuals who are facing discrimination or who are challenging discrimination in courts, and likewise to organizations that seek to assist them . We will also act in an educational capacity by forming coalitions and associations with other organizations for the purpose of identifying and addressing issues of concern in the transgender community, and we will monitor changes to the law to advise and recommend delegate attorneys for similar legal battles occurring in other states and federal fora.
Funding the Fight
One of the most significant ways in which the Transgender Legal Defense Fund helps transgender Americans is through the provision of legal services. The attorneys at tlDEF have worked tirelessly to advance equal rights for transgender Americans. Their work often focuses on cases seeking to end discrimination.
Some of the most common types of cases handled by the fund involve access to healthcare. When transgender Texans seek gender-affirming surgeries, their insurance plans may refuse coverage using blanket exclusions for these medically necessary procedures. With the support of tlDEF, Texas courts have held that gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition requiring treatment. Once this fact is established, it then follows that insurance companies should not be allowed to withhold otherwise appropriate treatment.
Many tlDEF cases involve protections against employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Texans can bring suit against wrongful job actions (e.g. termination, denial of hiring) for reasons that include gender. Gender identity discrimination is required by law to be treated just like sex-based discrimination when it comes to employment and hiring matters.
Another way in which tlDEF achieves its mission is to offer resources to our community. The tlDEF website has frequently updated legal resources for transgender citizens. A quick glance at their directory will reveal a wide range of available information. We recognize that not all cases can be taken, but this service at the very least helps us educate the community so they are better prepared in the event a legal issue arises.
Historical Precedent of the Fund
Since its founding in 2003, the Transgender Legal Defense Fund has served a critical role in advocating for transgender individuals through strategic litigation and advice. As a leader in the area of litigation, the Fund has brought forth cases that have set important legal precedents. In one of its earliest cases, the Fund represented Tyler Ford, a graduate student at New York University. Tyler was falsely accused of voyeurism and suspended from NYU after a video of Tyler removing their shirt at a Pride Month event was purportedly leaked on the Internet. Tyler alleged the NYU Dean who investigated the complaint interrogated them for hours and arbitrarily imposed discipline after the investigation. The Fund filed suit, and Tyler was reinstated and his student record was expunged.
Other high-profile victories include clarifying the law on how to handle student data, especially for transgender students. In 2016, the headline-grabbing Harper vs. Poway case involved a high school that banned the use of "he" and "she" by transgender students. The Fund was not involved with this specific case, but it did file an amicus brief supporting the transgender student’s position. But in 2018, the lower court’s decision was upheld in Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, and the Court specifically mentioned the Fund’s work as instrumental in the decision.
In another case, the Fund helped successfully argue that the policy of using birth sex as a basis to deny passport applications for transgender people violated the APA. Although this early strategy did not change everything that the Fund hoped, it was instrumental in paving the way for later success.
Other victories the Fund has achieved include:
As the issue of transgender rights continues to evolve, the Fund’s litigation and advice will continue to be at the forefront of how our federal and state laws help (or hurt) transgender individuals.
Utilizing the Fund’s Services
The Transgender Legal Defense Fund is open to those who have a legal need for protection from discrimination based on their gender identity or gender non-conformity. TLDEF asks that all applicants carefully review the FAQ page located at www.transgenderlegal.org in advance of applying to the Fund. The FAQ page provides a detailed description of the application process and important qualifications for Fund applicants.
Applicants are required to complete an intake form, which includes basic contact information and questions about their legal needs. Later in the form, applicants will find a list of questions regarding what legal issues they are facing . It is critical that applicants be honest in their responses.
Once the application form has been submitted, the information will be reviewed by a staff attorney in consultation with the Director of Public Engagement. Honest applicants that appear to be eligible for TLDEF’s legal services will receive a telephone call from a staff attorney within a few days from completion of the application form. TLDEF will first determine whether its services are a fit for the legal needs presented by the applicant. If TLDEF deems its services appropriate or necessary, it will either refer the applicant to pro-bono counsel or evaluate in-house the potential for a TLDEF intervention.
Supporting the Fund and Its Purpose
Perhaps the best way to support the Fund’s mission is to donate to them and help them represent even more transgender people. People who can give their time and expertise can join the Fund’s Transgender Lawyer Network. The TLDEF also welcomes pro bono lawyers, law students, volunteers and interns.
The Fund is always on the lookout for cases to add to its docket. In particular, they are seeking cases involving transgender youth in the K-12 education system and protecting against criminal arrest or incarceration discrimination.
An important project of the Fund is a national survey that identifies how people are treated when they try to get their birth certificates and drivers licenses changed. Modeling this year after 2017’s very successful survey, the Fund asked people to report their experiences getting ID’s in electronic, telephone and paper surveys. The Fund has been seeking authorized organizations to distribute the survey on their networks.
Some states do not provide transgender people with the ability to obtain identity documents that reflect their true gender. The Fund’s successful "Name Change Project" helps people get their name changed easily and inexpensively in those jurisdictions.
Future Challenges and Objectives
The future of any organization is littered with unknowns, but the goal of the Transgender Legal Defense Fund remains clear: provide legal support and education to as many transgender people who need it as possible. With approximately 1.4 million transgender people in the United States, that translates into millions of people who have potential legal issues, and millions more who need advice on how best to handle them. In short, it’s a lot of people and a lot of legal confusion.
TLDEF intends to significantly expand its network of partner attorneys and law schools to accommodate that need. "Our aim is to provide every transgender person access to legal support in their community," TLDEF Executive Director Jillian Weiss said. "Salary increases are always a hardship for nonprofit organizations, and TLDEF is no different. TLDEF has grown tremendously over the last several years, but to provide more services, we need more funding. We’re ten weeks into the fiscal year and I’m thrilled that we’ve brought aboard four new staff and two interns, but I worry that I wouldn’t be able to hire them if we lost our government funding or other contributions. Funding is always a challenge, and we need more of it if we want to grow."
Another goal of TLDEF is to continue providing knowledge resources to those who need them. As transgender legal and human rights issues become more prevalent and mainstream, so too do legal service providers and law school clinics aimed at assisting transgender individuals. This is encouraging, but also a prime opportunity for TLDEF to expand its already strong role as a leader in the field of transgender legal services. According to attorney and TLDEF Advisory Board member Michael Chester, "Other organizations look at TLDEF’s best practices in transgender law and see how they can incorporate them into their own work. We have cornered the market on providing pro bono services to transgender people , and no one does it as well as TLDEF. I won’t be surprised when I start hearing about best practices in LGBTQ law being identified as ‘TLDEF best practices,’ the same way we’ve heard so many times about best practices in spirituality and theology being labeled as ‘Calvinist.’"
The ever-evolving legal landscape is a third concern for TLDEF. It’s no secret that the administration currently in power near-flipped a decade of wide-sweeping and bipartisan protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and families in favor of legal protections based on religion, and many members of the transgender community have been closely following proceedings in the courts addressing such issues.
"This is not an issue about just transgender people," Weiss says. "The president has made exemptions for religious freedom to discriminate against whole groups of people, and that includes LGBTQ+ people, of course, but adheres to no specific religion. He’s allowed businesses to refuse to provide services to others if those services conflict with religious beliefs, and while that has been commonplace in some states where LGBTQ+ rights are advanced, now it is the law of the land. We can only hope that the courts will intervene and maintain the status quo, since there are literally hundreds of federal laws that were passed to protect people from discrimination, specifically based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Those protections were codified because they were badly needed, and it is deeply concerning to consider what the president can do with his executive power to roll them back. We have already seen several judges rule against transgender individuals, and we have targeted legal reform initiatives in place to make sure that never happens again."