I Entered Law to Protect My LGBTQ Community. I Need Solidarity From Colleagues.

On December 4, 2024, Chase Strangio became the first openly transgender person to orally argue a case before the Supreme Court. Strangio, a co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, appeared on behalf of the parents of a 16-year-old daughter challenging a law in Tennessee that banned puberty blockers, hormone therapies and gender-affirming surgeries for transgender youth. While the presence of Strangio in the country’s highest court is so important, many trans law students like myself worry we may not have the same opportunity in the future with the way things are headed.

I came into this profession to fight for my community, but by the time I graduate, I fear that legal protections for trans people will have been dismantled and that practicing law as a trans person will be unsafe. Tennessee was one of 19 states that passed such laws in 2023 — my first year of law school. Today, more than half the states in this country have enacted anti-trans laws, with 93 percent of transgender youth aged 13 to 17 living in states where such legislation has either been proposed or passed.

These are not symbolic laws; they are lethal. State bans on gender-affirming care have already resulted in an uptick in past-year suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary young people. Indeed, even in states where such bans have not been implemented, a staggering 86 percent of trans and nonbinary youth report that the relentless political attacks have worsened their mental health. The impact of these laws, though, cannot be reduced only to statistics — they have affected not only hundreds of thousands of trans youth individually but also our community as a whole.

Take me, for example. Law school’s first year is brutal — it is intensive and arguably a hazing ritual designed to break you down. However, I could barely concentrate on my legal studies with the far right trying to literally erase my existence. This looked not only like the murder of members of my community at Club Q in Colorado Springs an hour away from my law school, but also the coordinated legislative attacks against trans people across the country.

Every day it seems to grow more and more impossible to envision any future where trans people will ever be safe. But I’m a staunch believer that the law can be used as a sort of harm reduction and that we can keep each other safe. This fight against anti-trans hate compelled me to dedicate my time during my first year to writing about the legislative onslaught on my community, advocating at the state capital, and participating in local mutual aid efforts. Yet, I found myself feeling deeply isolated. Many of my fellow law students, as well as my professors, were not only unaware of these attacks but indifferent, believing it wasn’t their community being targeted and that they were “safe” in Colorado.

This sense of abandonment was especially painful within a legal environment that prides itself on its commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, public interest and social justice. Because of the hard work and dedication of LGBTQ lawyers, the American Bar Association (ABA) has passed countless policy resolutions, actively opposed various pieces of discriminatory legislation, and filed amicus briefs in landmark cases — including U.S. v. Skrmetti. The ABA has also implemented initiatives like the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Center, the Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and the Pipeline Diversity Directory to foster inclusion in the profession. Similarly, affinity groups like the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association and the National Trans Bar Association issue public statements, advocate for the LGBTQ community and provide resources for LGBTQ law students.

“What do we do when the courts won’t save us? Are we playing by rules that no longer exist?”

While those efforts are important, they occur within the boundaries of a profession that remains stubbornly conservative and slow to change. According to one 2020 ABA study, LGBTQ lawyers regularly encounter tremendous discrimination and bias in disproportionate measures compared to other colleagues. Similarly, a 2022 diversity report by the National Association for Law Placement showed that LGBTQ populations make up a small component of the legal profession, with many LGBTQ professionals facing distinctive challenges in their workplaces.

For example, my friend Robb Livingood, a trans attorney from West Virginia, went to law school to protect the vulnerable but ended up becoming a plaintiff in his own discrimination case. In 2018, he interviewed for a position at the Public Defender Corporation, Fifth Judicial Circuit, but the employer’s interest waned during the in-person meeting, seemingly due to transphobia. He filed a complaint with the West Virginia Human Rights Commission, which in 2020 found enough evidence to move forward with his claim. In 2021, an administrative judge ruled that Livingood had been a victim of sex discrimination under the West Virginia Human Rights Act, awarding him over $100,000 in lost wages and attorney fees.

“Even though I am from West Virginia, I honestly did not expect the onslaught of anti-transgender discrimination when I came out, especially not in the public interest sector where I aspire to work. I expected a lot better from West Virginia, especially from those charged with protecting the vulnerable,” Livingood told me. “While I did file a Human Rights Commission complaint against one local Public Defender office for sex-based discrimination in my early years of gender journey, that instance of discrimination was by no means isolated. The discrimination I took to court was just the tip of the iceberg. There were other situations where it was obvious, but less provable, that transphobia was the culprit behind negative employment decisions.”

Despite the court’s ruling, he has not yet received the $100,000 awarded to him by the court and, three years later, the Public Defender Corporation is continuing to fight the ruling. Moreover, if the Supreme Court were to overturn Bostock v. Clayton County, discrimination like what Livingood faced might well become legal again.

Anti-LGBTQ laws add to the already overwhelming stress placed on transgender law students who are trying to navigate a field riddled with similar instances of discrimination. These laws feed stress, anxiety and depression, turning what should be places of learning into hostile spaces and piling the odds even higher against us in an already biased job market.

While it’s easy to feel crushed under the weight of these barriers, we are also rooted in the histories of resistance paved by our elders and ancestors.

“Anti-trans legislation generates fear around being trans or even an ally, alienates trans and gender-nonconforming people, and tries to make gender nonconformity and transness taboo. I think this can make law school and the legal profession even more difficult to navigate than they already are,” Hannah Reynolds Martínez, a law student and activist, told me. “There are already structural barriers to the legal world for trans lawyers and law students: trans folks are likely to be overrepresented in public sector legal jobs, receive lower average salaries than their cisgender counterparts, and tend to be less likely to find employment in private firms. But adding in the additional barriers of legislation that denies gender-affirming health care and social stigmatization of transness, a legal career can become even more challenging.”

For many of us, the thought of practicing law in states with hostile laws feels impossible — whole regions are becoming no-go zones, shrinking our opportunities and mobility. Some of us might not even get to law school, disheartened before we’ve even begun.

“Trans lawyers and law students should be able to work in affirming and safe spaces, as well as [be] able to express themselves freely. However, some states with hostile legal and political environments may force trans folks to reconsider their employment, whether they can be out at work and in other environments, and more,” Martínez said.

With another Trump administration looming, these threats feel suffocating. Title IX protections could be dismantled, stripping away critical safeguards against discrimination in law schools. Far right judicial appointments have accelerated the erosion of anti-discrimination protections and make it even more dangerous for trans students to clerk or argue in court. This perceived erosion of judicial impartiality and the far right capture of the courts have also eroded many trans students’ faith in the profession.

“I’ve had a clear-cut plan for the next few years that includes getting into the best law school I can, securing appellate clerkships for afterward, and positioning myself to do impact litigation. However, the day after the election, I found myself questioning these goals for the first time. What’s the point of appellate advocacy if the Supreme Court and many lower courts will be overrun by far right appointees for the majority of my lifetime?” Julian Applebaum, a trans activist and incoming law student who has interned with the ACLU told me. “The ACLU’s motto for bringing big civil liberties suits is a triumphant ‘We’ll See You in Court!’ But that implies that we can rely on the courts for fair, transparent and impartial standards of ruling. What do we do when the courts won’t save us? Are we playing by rules that no longer exist?”

“Recent Supreme Court decisions signal that the federal judiciary will not be a reliable shield against anti-trans legislation.”

This doubt about the law’s current capacity to bring about positive change is something many of us can relate to. For example, many of the classes that I have taken in law school, such as administrative law and constitutional law, feel almost pointless now after the far right Supreme Court has overturned precedents like Chevron and Roe v. Wade and seem poised to dismantle equal protection as we know it.

Additionally, anti-trans federal and congressional policies will further limit the number of safe and affirming job opportunities for trans law students. For instance, while Applebaum is still planning on going to law school, he told me that the election has disrupted what he once felt was a stable career path. He said that he is deeply concerned that he will have to decline opportunities like summer internships with the Department of Justice, congressional offices, or other federal entities, especially if the Trump administration and Republican congressional majorities roll back protections for transgender staff.

“What if I work on Capitol Hill for my congressperson and I use the men’s bathroom (I’m a trans man, and I would refuse to use the women’s room) and I am disciplined for violating the new rule Rep. Mike Johnson enacted? And then Nancy Mace or Fox News or whoever blasts my face on national news for an absurd culture war spat? I don’t want to put myself through that,” Applebaum said.

Even getting licensed to practice law could become a minefield. The subjective “good moral character” requirements of bar applications could be used against trans applicants. Committees might probe into our gender identity and medical history although that would obviously have no bearing on our competence to practice law. In conservative states, we could be rejected outright if our identities are seen as incompatible with some narrow, outdated definition of “moral” values. Mental health history could become another weapon. And with high rates of depression in our community — often the direct result of systemic oppression — there’s a real fear that trans identities could be re-pathologized, making this bias even worse.

For trans folks in states like Florida, the barriers are even higher. Laws that restrict legal name changes or gender marker updates threaten to invalidate something as basic as a state ID. My own updated gender marker could lead my own ID to be flagged as “fraudulent” in Florida. Trans applicants may be forced to answer invasive questions about these changes and, if the names and gender markers on our birth certificates, driver’s licenses, academic transcripts, and other documents do not match because of such restrictive laws, we may face delays, confusion or outright rejection of our bar application.

While it’s easy to feel crushed under the weight of these barriers, to feel like the odds are insurmountable, I have to remind myself that we may feel like we are in uncharted territory, but we are also rooted in the histories of resistance paved by our elders and ancestors.

People such as Pauli Murray, Phyllis Randolph Frye and Kylar W. Broadus remind us of what resilience looks like in the face of systemic oppression. Murray’s work — as a legal scholar and civil rights activist — laid the groundwork for major victories like Brown v. Board of Education. A Black, gender-nonconforming person, Murray wrote about the experience of living “in-between” genders while pursuing justice in a world not built for them. Frye became an attorney and judge, overcoming estrangement, job loss and relentless discrimination in the 1970s to become the “grandmother of the transgender rights movement.” Broadus, a Black transgender man, has made a career out of advocating for transgender legal protections and workplace rights, including being the first openly transgender person to testify before the U.S. Senate. Strangio, Applebaum, Livingood, Martínez and I are in great company.

There are so many other trans attorneys who did not feel safe to be out, but still paved the way for a future where Strangio could argue in front of the country’s highest court. Their courage may not have been visible, but it’s no less meaningful. They — along with figures like Murray, Frye and Broadus — give me hope. They remind me that even in the darkest of times, our fight to exist, to thrive and to make change matters. And while the law is often an instrument of power that upholds capitalism and white supremacy, there may also be some merit in attempting to use it to protect our communities from further state violence as a form of collective defense.

But the legal profession must also fight to protect us — the lawyers, law students and legal workers fighting for a better world.

“Now more than ever, trans people, including law students and lawyers, need local-level protections,” says D Dangaran, co-chair of the National Trans Bar Association (NTBA). “Recent Supreme Court decisions and the argument in United States v. Skrmetti signal that the federal judiciary will not be a reliable shield against anti-trans legislation.”

Law schools, bar associations and employers should move beyond symbolic gestures of inclusion to take active steps to make these spaces truly equitable.

“I think now, more than ever, it’s necessary for the legal field to step up to advocate for marginalized communities in the light of anti-trans, ableist and racist policies and rhetoric that harm underrepresented legal professionals,” Martínez said. “Law schools, bar associations and advocacy groups should start centering trans voices in their scholarship, leadership and preparation for the upcoming administration now. Trans advocates and professionals are best positioned to address how individual schools and organizations can support their community.”

This will mean robust anti-discrimination policies, structured mentorship programs for trans professionals, and advocating for the improvement of mechanisms of accountability in causing harm.

“Shield laws, mutual aid and private protections are critical tools moving forward. NTBA is working towards creating toolkits and best practices guides for courts, schools and the legal profession to treat trans and nonbinary law students, members of the profession, and parties in court with dignity and respect,” D Dangaran said.

Legal organizations should set an example by creating spaces where trans people can not only survive but succeed because of policies that match up with the equity and justice they proclaim. If we are to build a better future, the profession must join us in creating it — where we not only can exist without fear, but also be supported in building a liberatory future for trans people together.

“To the other trans and gender-nonconforming law students and practitioners out there, your existence is a form of protest and resistance. Your resilience is enough, if you don’t have anything more to give,” Martínez said. “Your challenges are what make you a strong advocate. We need lawyers and legal professionals like you.”