In my role as the director of a grassroots legal services project whose mission is to serve unhoused Queer and Trans youth, I thought I was spending a lot of time thinking about how we advance the rights of LGBTQIA+youth. Then a new administration took charge of the White House this past January, and I found myself, like so many others, in a new legal reality that is antithetical to everything I’ve ever practiced in my career. My role has become less about advancing and more about protecting, safeguarding, and shielding the clients who come through our doors.

In the last few months, I’ve sat with countless young people who are navigating fear and uncertainty and are witnessing their dignity being stripped from them, inch by inch. We find ourselves having conversations that seem to get more absurd and granular as we assess whether a young person can cross a state line, how they can apply for a work permit, and what types of speech, if any, they are truly permitted to express in these uncertain times. We’re confronted with executive orders, gutted administrative agencies, and legislators refusing to stand for the rights of those who put them in office. Amidst all of that is a judicial branch that is almost groaning under the weight of its efforts to stem the tide of this administration’s efforts to roll back civil rights for so many.

Keep Reading Remarks on “Transcendence: Legal Efforts to Protect and Advance LGBTQIA Youth Rights”