LGBTQ+ Rights

The ACLU has a long history of defending the LGBTQ+ community. We brought our first LGBTQ+ rights case in 1936. What is now the Jon L. Stryker and Slobodan Randjelović LGBTQ+ & HIV Project was founded in 1986 and renamed in 2021. Today, the ACLU brings more LGBTQ+ rights cases and advocacy initiatives than any other national organization does. In fact, the ACLU has been counsel in seven of the nine LGBTQ+ rights cases that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided — more than any other organization. With our reach into the courts and legislatures of every state, there is no other organization that can match our record of making progress both in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion.

The ACLU’s current priorities are to end discrimination, harassment and violence toward transgender people, to close gaps in our federal and state civil rights laws, to prevent protections against discrimination from being undermined by a license to discriminate, and to protect LGBTQ+ people in and from the criminal legal system.

Senate Bill (SB) 140 is an anti-trans bill signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp that prevents transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming youth from receiving gender-affirming care in Georgia. Specifically, SB 140 bans surgical procedures and hormone replacement therapy for new patients under the age of 18 who are experiencing gender dysphoria. The bans are enforced by subjecting licensed physicians and medical providers to medical license revocation, civil penalties, and criminal charges for administering this care.