On July 1, 2022, Lambda Legal – The nation’s oldest and largest LGBTQ+ legal rights organization – underscored its joint demand with GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center for expanding the U.S. Supreme Court and requiring Supreme Court justices to abide by a code of ethics, along with lifting the filibuster and passing voting rights legislation, by citing numerous specific examples of the Court’s legally unsound and devastating upending of long-settled precedents, heedless of the harmful impacts on the American people, all issued in recent weeks.
“To justify its elimination of some protections and substantial constriction of others, this Court has employed a historical readings of American history, and a bizarre mode of analysis that limits essential rights exclusively to those that ostensibly were recognized and enjoyed by the people who had full legal status a century or two ago, thus excluding any specific legal needs of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people, among others.”
February 2022: While state bills and book bans have garnered the most media attention, advocates say there are a host of other troubling trends adding to the distress that many queer students are feeling: removals of Pride flags and other LGBTQ-affirming symbols from classrooms, disbandments of gay-straight alliance clubs, and resignations of teachers in protest of anti-LGBTQ policies.
The Trevor Project: 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health
“Recent political attacks aimed at transgender and nonbinary youth have not only threatened their access to health care, support systems, and affirming spaces at school, they’ve also negatively impacted their mental health.” Dr. Jonah DeChants (he/him) Research Scientist, The Trevor Project