LGBTQ+ Rights

Gibson Dunn is proud to have assisted the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association in developing a Resource Guide to Improve Safety in Carceral Housing for Transgender People. The Guide is intended to support the critical work of advocates fighting for the safety and autonomy of incarcerated transgender people, who often are unaware about the policies in place to protect them. Recognizing this information gap, a team of Gibson Dunn lawyers spanning the globe worked together to compile policies concerning housing transgender inmates across all 50 states and territories of the United States. The resulting guide is a robust, easy-to-use, comprehensive resource that gives transgender inmates and their advocates quick access to the legal remedies available to transfer transgender people to their preferred population.

Gibson Dunn has long fostered a partnership with Legal Services NYC, a leading legal aid organization in New York, to assist LGBTQ+ individuals seeking asylum in the United States. Each year, we screen dozens of LGBTQ+ clients for asylum eligibility and take on the cases of those individuals deemed to have a viable asylum claim. In some cases, we pair our asylum representation with assistance obtaining name and gender-marker changes.

In all of these cases, our clients have fled incredibly dangerous conditions in their home countries in search of safety and the ability to live authentically. They came to the United States from countries on every continent, including Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Liberia, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Syria, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela. Now, they are building new lives in New York City. Over the last five years, the firm has helped more than 40 clients obtain asylum. Many have since received their green cards, and several will soon be eligible to apply for citizenship.

In 2023, the firm continued its longstanding partnership with The Trevor Project, the largest LGBTQ+ youth crisis intervention and suicide prevention organization and the only nationwide organization that offers accredited, free, and confidential phone, instant message, and text messaging crisis intervention services for LGBTQ+ youth. Last year, we filed amicus briefs on behalf of The Trevor Project to protect the right of transgender students to participate in school sports. In two of the briefs, we supported transgender plaintiffs who challenged state laws that would effectively ban transgender women and girls from participating in school sports in a manner consistent with their gender identity. In another, we wrote in support of a state policy that allows transgender youth to continue to participate in sports as their authentic selves. Specifically, we argued that policies that exclude transgender youth from sports exacerbate the harms these youth already face from discrimination, including severe effects on their mental health. For example, a study published by The Trevor Project found that while nearly half of transgender women and girls had seriously considered suicide within the past year, the risk of suicide significantly decreased when they had a supportive and accepting environment at school.