This presentation will discuss the Supreme Court’s 2020 landmark decisions in Bostock, Zarda and Stephens, and the path leading to its decision. The address will further dive into implications for some of the most pressing issues in LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Advocacy.
After a tumultuous four years under the Trump Administration, the beginning of the Biden Administration and the landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., this presentation will survey the landscape of LGBTQ+ civil rights and liberties. Attendees will be guided through the contours of the Bostock decision and its impact on the meaning of “on the basis of sex”. Further, attendees will learn about the implications for LGBTQ civil rights in employment, healthcare, public education, public accommodations, etc. Finally, attendees will learn about the threats to LGBTQ+ civil rights and what the Movement anticipates in the coming years and during the Biden Administration.
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Taylor Brown
Taylor Brown (she/her) is a Staff Attorney in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and HIV (“LGBT”) Project at the National Headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) in New York City. Taylor litigates civil rights lawsuits nationally, to defend and expand the civil rights and liberties of LGBTQ+ people and all people living with HIV.
Taylor is also actively engaged in federal and state policy advocacy and community engagement. She is a proud first-generation college student and first-generation law student. Taylor is an openly black transgender woman. Taylor survived violence related to her transgender status, poverty, housing instability, her father’s incarceration and healthcare discrimination, to become a leader in the newest wave of the fight for the full recognition of civil rights and liberties for LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV.
Taylor is originally from Morganton, NC. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in Chapel Hill, NC, as a Carolina Covenant Scholar. Taylor then attended the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law as an E. Nathaniel Gates Scholar.
Before joining the ACLU, Taylor worked at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund (“Lambda”). Taylor began her career as a legal intern in the Transgender Rights Project at Lambda while in law school. She later joined Lambda as the 2017-2019 Tyron Garner Memorial Law Fellow (“Garner Fellow”) in Lambda’s Atlanta office. As the Garner Fellow, Taylor conducted litigation, policy advocacy, and education campaigns, targeting the legal issues impacting the intersection of LGBTQ+, HIV+, and Black status. In October of 2018, one year into her fellowship, Taylor was asked to join Lambda as a Staff Attorney, the first time in the history of the fellowship and marking Taylor as the first black trans attorney hired at Lambda. At Lambda, Taylor litigated numerous civil rights cases across the country.