Established | 2012 |
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Location |
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Executive Director | Danni Askini |
Website | www |
Gender Justice League (GJL) is an advocacy group for transgender, genderqueer, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming individuals in Washington State in the United States. [1] The group advocates for transgender legal, political, and medical rights as well as participating in protests, awareness raising, and fundraising events. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Gender Justice League was founded in 2012 by transgender activists and allies. [3] In 2013 they organized the first Trans Pride Seattle, which has since taken place annually in June. [5]
Gender Justice League's SafeHouse program provides shelter and financial assistance services to transgender and gender diverse people who have experienced gender-based violence and houselessness in King county and along the Olympic peninsula.
One focus of Gender Justice League is curbing legislation that prohibits transgender individuals from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth, otherwise known as bathroom bills. [1] [6] [7] Washington currently has a law that protects transgender individual's rights in public bathrooms, but GJL's activists are concerned about petitions that are trying to get rid of these laws and legal initiatives to overrule them. [8] [9] [10] [11]
Gender Justice League has held legal clinics to help transgender individuals legally change their names. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] These clinics were specifically held between November 2016 and January 2017, due to the group's fear that newly elected president Donald Trump might revoke transgender individual's ability to legally change their names once he was inaugurated. [13] [16] [17] These clinics invited volunteers from various LGBTQ+ law organizations to do pro bono work, and the clinics served as many as 200 individuals. [13] [18] A problem arose, however, as the Gender Justice League wanted to provide money to those trying to change their names, but were unable to due to their tax status. GJL organized with King County to be able to give individuals seeking a name change the money to do so without forfeiting their nonprofit status. [18]
Gender Justice League supports various political causes within the city of Seattle, not all of which are strictly related to transgender issues. [19] [20] GJL has also supported other efforts within the city, including bills that strengthen tenant's rights. [21]
Kshama Sawant was the recipient of a Gender Justice Award in 2015 for her political activism supporting transgender individuals. [22] Sawant has also donated money from her "solidarity fund" to GJL, citing their efforts to help transgender individuals as the reason for her donation. [23]
Gender Justice League is active in influencing Washington State politics. They have had an impact in organizing against bills that they believe would harm transgender individuals in Washington, including Washington Senate Bill 6443 and state ballot initiatives 1515 (2016) and 1552 (2017). [10] [24] [23] [19] [25]
In 2017 Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN filed a lawsuit on behalf of Gender Justice League against President Trump and the U.S. Department of Defense over the transgender military ban, proposed by Trump on July 26, 2017. [26] [27] [28]
Gender Justice League organizes the annual Trans Pride Seattle, an event that is very similar to a Gay Pride Parade. [5] [29] [30] The event was first organized in 2013, a year after the organization was founded. [31] The 2016 event drew upwards of 5,000 participants. [32] Members of Gender Justice League claim that the event is a necessary space for transgender individuals and their allies to form community and overcome isolation. [33]
Gender Justice League holds an annual awards ceremony called the Gender Justice Awards, in which they celebrate individuals who have supported the transgender community. [34] [35]
In 2016, Gender Justice League helped organize the Solidarity Music Festival as a form of anti-capitalist protest. [36]
Transgender rights in Canada, including procedures for changing legal gender and protections from discrimination, vary among provinces and territories, due to Canada's nature as a federal state. According to the 2021 Canadian census, 59,460 Canadians identify as transgender. Canada was ranked third in Asher & Lyric's Global Trans Rights Index in 2023.
The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) is a nonprofit social equality organization founded in 2003 by transgender activist Mara Keisling in Washington, D.C. The organization works primarily in the areas of policy advocacy and media activism with the aim of advancing the equality of transgender people in the United States. Among other transgender-related issue areas, NCTE focuses on discrimination in employment, access to public accommodations, fair housing, identity documents, hate crimes and violence, criminal justice reform, federal research surveys and the Census, and health care access.
The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) is a legal aid organization based in New York City at the Miss Major-Jay Toole Building for Social Justice that serves low-income or people of color who are transgender, intersex and/or gender non-conforming. The organization was formed in August 2002 by attorney and transgender civil rights activist, Dean Spade. The project was named for Sylvia Rivera, a transgender activist and veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, who died the same year that SRLP was formed.
The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the United States are among the most advanced in the world, with public opinion and jurisprudence changing significantly since the late 1980s.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Vietnam face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. From 2000, both male and female forms of same-sex sexual activity are legal and are believed to never have been criminalized in Vietnamese history. However, same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are ineligible for the legal protections available to heterosexual couples. Vietnam provides limited anti-discrimination protections for transgender people. The right to change gender was officially legalized in Vietnam after the National Assembly passed an amendment to the Civil Code in 2015.
A transgender person is someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
The transgender rights movement is a movement to promote the legal status of transgender people and to eliminate discrimination and violence against transgender people regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health care. A major goal of transgender activism is to allow changes to identification documents to conform with a person's current gender identity without the need for gender-affirming surgery or any medical requirements, which is known as gender self-identification. It is part of the broader LGBT rights movements.
In the United States, the rights of transgender people vary considerably by jurisdiction. In recent decades, there has been an expansion of federal, state, and local laws and rulings to protect transgender Americans; however, many rights remain unprotected, and some rights are being eroded. Since 2020, there has been a national movement by conservative/right-wing politicians and organizations to target transgender rights. There has been a steady increase in the number of anti-transgender bills introduced each year, especially in Republican-led states.
Dean Spade is an American lawyer, writer, trans activist, and associate professor of law at Seattle University School of Law.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the U.S. state of Tennessee may experience some legal challenges that non-LGBTQ residents do not. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal in the state since 1996. Marriage licenses have been issued to same-sex couples in Tennessee since the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015.
Discrimination against non-binary people, people who do not identify exclusively as male or female, may occur in social, legal, or medical contexts.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Kerala face legal and social difficulties not experienced by non-LGBT persons. However, Kerala has been at the forefront of LGBT issues in India after Tamil Nadu. It became one of the first states in India to establish a welfare policy for the transgender community and in 2016, proposed implementing free gender affirmation surgery through government hospitals. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal since 2018, following the Supreme Court ruling in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India. In addition, numerous LGBT-related events have been held across Kerala, including in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. However, there is also increasing opposition to LGBT rights recently as evidenced by the anti-LGBT campaigns spearheaded by meninist groups and Muslim organisations like Indian Union Muslim League, Samastha and Jamaat-e-Islami.
A bathroom bill is the common name for legislation or a statute that denies access to public toilets by gender or transgender identity. Bathroom bills affect access to sex-segregated public facilities for an individual based on a determination of their sex as defined in some specific way, such as their sex as assigned at birth, their sex as listed on their birth certificate, or the sex that corresponds to their gender identity. A bathroom bill can either be inclusive or exclusive of transgender individuals, depending on the aforementioned definition of their sex.
Title IX of the United States Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination "on the basis of sex" in educational programs and activities that receive financial assistance from the federal government. The Obama administration interpreted Title IX to cover discrimination on the basis of assigned sex, gender identity, and transgender status. The Trump administration determined that the question of access to sex-segregated facilities should be left to the states and local school districts to decide. The validity of the executive's position is being tested in the federal courts.
G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board was a court case dealing with transgender rights in the United States. The case involved a transgender boy attending a Virginia high school, who sued the local school board after he was forced to use girls' restrooms based on his assigned gender under the school board's policy. While the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of the student based on Obama administration policy related to Title IX protections, the election of Donald Trump changed the underlying policy. A pending hearing before the Supreme Court of the United States was vacated and the case was sent back to the Fourth Circuit.
House Bill 142 is a 2017 law that was enacted in the state of North Carolina that repealed House Bill 2. The bill states that all "state agencies, boards, offices, departments, institutions, branches of government, including The University of North Carolina and the North Carolina Community College System, and political subdivisions of the State, are preempted from regulation of access to multiple occupancy restrooms, showers, or changing facilities, except in accordance with an act of the General Assembly." It also enacted that no local government in this state may enact or amend an ordinance regulating private employment practices or regulating public accommodations until December 1, 2020.
The legal and regulatory history of transgender and transsexual people in the United States begins in the 1960s. Such legislation covers federal, state, municipal, and local levels, as well as military justice. It reflects broader societal attitudes which have shifted significantly over time and have impacted legislative and judicial outcomes.
Ingersoll Gender Center is an American non-profit organization based in Seattle that provides peer-led support groups, advocacy and community organization for transgender and gender non-conforming people in the Puget Sound region. It is one of the oldest organizations serving said community in the United States.
Transphobia in the United States has changed over time. Understanding and acceptance of transgender people have both decreased and increased during the last few decades depending on the details of the issues which have been facing the public. Various governmental bodies in the United States have enacted anti-transgender legislation. Social issues in the United States also reveal a level of transphobia. Because of transphobia, transgender people in the U.S. face increased levels of violence and intimidation. Cisgender people can also be affected by transphobia.
"Protect trans kids" is a slogan used in support of the transgender rights movement with a focus on transgender youth. The phrase is often used in protests by transgender rights activists, being placed on signs and shirts. Professional athletes and entertainers have also been documented using or wearing the phrase in support of pro-trans rights sentiments.