Transgender Rights Project
Transgender Family Law
Transgender Family Law: A Guide to Effective Advocacy will be available in May, 2012! Find out more →
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Video
Everyone Matters: Dignity and Safety for Transgender People
News
November 16, 2011 Transgender Protections Passed in Massachusetts
July 12, 2011 GLAD Lawsuit Produces New Denny’s Bathroom Policy for Transgender Patrons
June 20, 2011 Following the passage of non-discrimination legislation in Connecticut, Jennifer Levi talks about the importance of transgender non-discrimination laws in Jurist
February 17, 2011 - Governor Patrick Signs Historic Executive Order Protecting MA Transgender State Employees GLAD, MTPC and MassEquality initiated a conversation with Governor Patrick about issuing an executive order to provide employment protections to transgender state employees and employees of state vendors. We’re excited to announce that Gov. Patrick signed this executive order on 2/17/11. As the largest employer in the state this sends a strong signal to the legislature and we hope to see a statewide bill passed in 2011.
About the Transgender Rights Project
Transgender people face the most basic and blatant discrimination every day - from being denied access to employment, housing, or healthcare, to being physically attacked because of the way they look or dress.
Through the Transgender Rights Project (TRP), GLAD puts our litigation, legislative, and educational assets to work in a focused way to establish clear legal protections for the transgender community. Information about current and past cases can be found below.
The TRP also works closely with state-based transgender advocacy organizations. Community collaboration is at the heart of so much of GLAD’s work. A key to our success is that each organization makes unique contributions.
These collaborations include our partnership with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. GLAD worked together with MTPC and other members of the MA Transgender Rights Coalition to successfully pass a bill in 2011 that adds gender identity and expression to the state’s nondiscrimination and hate crimes laws.
In addition, after several years of advocacy by GLAD and MTPC with the Registry of Motor Vehicles and other state agencies, a new policy for changing gender markers on identification documents was achieved in 2010. GLAD continues to monitor its implementation and provides information to the transgender community about the new policy.
In Connecticut, GLAD was a key partner in the coalition, ctEquality, that successfully worked to pass a statewide bill that adds gender identity and expression to Connecticut nondiscrimination laws in 2011.
With TransGender New Hampshire, GLAD participated in public education and legal work to support a bill which includes transgender people in the anti-discrimination statute in New Hampshire in 2009. Unfortunately this bill was defeated last legislative session. Undeterred, we are working to be sure the community is ready for future re-introduction of the legislation in 2011. To do so, GLAD has helped establish a new coalition, the New Hampshire Coalition for Transgender Equality.
Jennifer Levi, Esq.
Jennifer L. Levi is the director of GLAD's Transgender Rights Project and a nationally recognized expert on transgender legal issues. She co-edited Transgender Family Law: A Guide to Effective Advocacy, the first book to address legal issues facing transgender people in the family law context and provide practitioners the tools to effectively represent transgender clients.Jennifer has served as counsel in a number of precedent-setting cases establishing basic rights for transgender people, including: O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue which established that medical care relating to gender transition qualifies as a medical deduction for federal income tax purposes; Doe v. Yunits, in which she represented a transgender student denied the right to attend school because of the clothing she wore; and Adams v. Bureau of Prisons, which successfully challenged a federal prison policy excluding medical care for transgender inmates who came into the system without a transition-related medical plan, among many others. She also has worked on a number of high profile family law cases including the Miller-Jenkins case establishing full parental rights for a Vermont civil union spouse and cases in Connecticut and Massachusetts that established the right of same-sex couples to marry.
Jennifer is a law professor at Western New England University. She serves on the Legal Committee of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and is a founding member of both the Transgender Law & Policy Institute and the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.
Jennifer is a graduate of Wellesley College and the University of Chicago Law School and a former law clerk to Judge Michael Boudin at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Video: Jennifer Levi talks about GLAD's Transgender Rights Project
Video: Jennifer Levi testifies in Massachusetts in support of transgender nondiscrimination protections
Jennifer Levi interviewed in Tapestry Magazine in 2005
Related Cases
CHRO and Dana Peterson v. City of Hartford
GLAD is participating in the appeal of a Connecticut Commission on Human Rights (CHRO) finding against a police sergeant who was denied a position as … Read More →
Doe v. Clenchy
Case Summary
GLAD is representing a transgender teen girl whose Orono, Maine elementary school denied her use of the girls’ restroom and other … Read More →
Adams v. Bureau of Prisons
Update: September 30, 2011
A settlement was announced September 30, 2011 in the case of Vanessa Adams, a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) inmate at … Read More →
Freeman v. Denny’s
GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project and Realty Resources Hospitality, which operates six Denny’s restaurants throughout Maine, are pleased to announce … Read More →
In re A.M.B.
GLAD filed an amicus brief with the Maine high court in support of a trangender man who was denied a name change by Cumberland County Probate court. … Read More →
O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Victory! On February 2, 2010, the U.S. Tax Court issued an important decision in O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, ruling for the … Read More →
Blanchette v. Saint Anselm College
In June 2005, GLAD filed a lawsuit in U. S. District Court in New Hampshire on behalf of a transgender woman in New Hampshire who was fired from … Read More →
Barreto-Neto v. Town of Hardwick Police Department
GLAD worked with a police officer in the Town of Hardwick, Vermont, in Northern Vermont who was terminated from the police department when the Town … Read More →
Jette v. Honey Farms
One of two landmark rulings issued in October 2001, in which the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination drew on GLAD legal analysis to rule … Read More →
Millett v. Lutco
One of two landmark rulings issued in October 2001, in which the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination drew from GLAD legal analysis to … Read More →
Rosa v. Park West Bank
In a precedent-setting decision with major implications for the business community, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit … Read More →
Beger v. Division of Medical Assistance
In this case, a Superior Court in Suffolk County ordered the state of Massachusetts to pay for a surgical procedure it had denied to a transsexual … Read More →
In re John/Jane Doe
In November 2000, the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) issued a landmark ruling stating that all transgender people … Read More →
Doe v. Yunits
GLAD obtained a landmark ruling, in the first reported decision ever in a case brought by a transgender student, that a middle school may not … Read More →