People We Love 2018: Lambda Legal

Founded in 1973, Lambda Legal is the national advocate for the LGBT community. “We are your lawyers,”  they like to say.  “From six offices across the country, we are devoted to ensuring LGBT people and everyone living with HIV are protected and safe.”

Over the past five decades, Lambda Legal has been at the forefront of many of the court battles attempting to ensure a greater measure of equality for LGBTQ Americans. A more laser-focused cousin of the ACLU, Lambda Legal is “fighting back,” they say, “by continuing our 45 years of work protecting marriage equality and the equal dignity of all LGBT and people living with HIV and expanding the quilt of protection for queer and trans workers, as well as students, through impact litigation and public policy strategies nationwide.”
 
They have their hands full at the moment, as the Trump/Pence agenda seeks to roll back many of the hard-won legal victories of recent years. Lambda Legal is engaged with them on a number of fronts, with lawsuits “aimed at protecting the civil rights of queer Americans, including our challenge to the president’s transgender military ban, which has achieved court victories and in which we will prevail.”
 
It’s easy to see why they’re on our list of People We Love: “We will not stop fighting for our LGBT community,” says their spokesman, “and as a result, for all Americans. Until every person is afforded full civil rights, no one can fully experience the freedom to be proud of who we are as a society, no matter where we come from, who we love, or what we believe.”