Lambda Legal

So give these people some homework.

I mean, I'm always going to pay attention to Lambda Legal and the ACLU, and it's like a weirder, harder time right now because we have a Supreme Court that is very willing to take away rights.

So I would say...

What's Lambda Legal? First of all, we didn't talk about this, but you are a lawyer.

I don't know if you still have an active license.

No, I don't.

But

Lambda Legal is a queer legal advocacy organization that does educational work, but they also do legal advocacy.

Nicole Nava, a spokesperson for the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund, a federally funded program established to compensate for physical harm or death caused by the 9-11 terrorist attacks, including support for surviving family members, said she would inquire into whether same-sex surviving partners were being supported under the program in subsequent years in response to requests from the Washington Blade.

Jenny Pitzer, an attorney for the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, which supported LGBTQ partner survivors of victims of the 9-11 attacks, said the information she and her organization had showed that many, if not most, of the LGBTQ partner survivors were unable to obtain the federal victim compensation fund payment benefits that, of course, married heterosexual spouses obtain.

She said she didn't have a definite answer on whether some LGBTQ surviving partners were compensated.

However, at least one case where an LGBTQ partner was compensated was reported by the Washington Post in a January 2003 news story about Peggy Neff, the lesbian partner of 18 years of Sheila Hine, 51, a civilian employee at the Pentagon who was killed when the terrorist hijacked jetliner crashed into the Pentagon.

We come together as As Ashingtonians who love our country, as Americans who love our country, our enemies may hurt our bodies and destroy our buildings, but they will never defeat our determination to make this a world of peace and a community in which our children grow up safe and secure.

Although some of the same-sex partners of those killed in the 9-11 attacks faced obstacles in obtaining financial support through the federal 9-11 relief program, Tom Hay, the surviving partner of 14 years of American Airlines pilot David Charlebois, was treated with respect and honor by American Airlines officials and colleagues at his funeral mass at D.C. St. Matthew Cathedral.

14 years ago 14 years from marriage equality there was some good and bad news in that we were just fighting just as hard back then in a separate development the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal The Human Rights Campaign and other LGBTQ advocacy groups created the September 11th Gay and Lesbian Family Fund to provide some support to surviving same-sex partners who were ineligible for help from the federal relief program.

So I just wanted to take a moment and of course remember those LGBTQ heroes that we lost and think about The fact that their loved ones, they couldn't be legally wed at that time and how our community had to come together and aid them as we still have to come together and keep fighting.

Exactly.

Even though I was listed as his domestic partner with American Airlines and I was the beneficiary of his insurance policy, I was able to be represented by Lambda Legal Defense, which which is a gay and lesbian advocacy group.

We met with the senior vice president of human resources.

Our visit that day in Dallas changed their entire policy for the entire company, which was phenomenal.

Right.

So we then talked to a couple different nonprofits, including the Gilbert Baker Foundation, Lambda Legal, the New York City, I do believe, Preservation Society.

Then there's one other nonprofit.

Oh, I think it's Equality New York.

They came out to their families and friends.

They built organizations like Lambda Legal.

They fought for small wins in state courts and legislatures.

And by the time Lawrence versus Texas came around in 2003, public opinion had shifted so much that the court was basically ratifying a revolution that had already happened.

I forget what it was.

Something gay, the Center, Lambda Legal, something.

And I was walking through the door at the same time as her, and she looked so major.

She was wearing her signature outfit, which is just, like, a long-sleeved form-fitting black shirt and a black pair of pants, and then she had the most incredible cuffs.

We're working with our partners at the ACLU with the Texas A&M case and with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

And we have private firms that are working with us as well and Lambda Legal and others.

Yeah, we have many lawyers working on these.

And what are you fundamentally seeking in those? Essentially a revocation of these policies at the campus or the university level? Yeah,

Legal.

Lambda Legal.

They're going to go after their name checking civil liberties organizations.

They're starting to raise the specter of calling folks domestic terrorists and claiming that we should be more afraid of domestic by domestic terror.

Thank you.

She's also being honored tonight with the Liberty Award from Lambda Legal for her advocacy in the LGBTQ+ issue.

Woo!

Yes.

And his contributions to LGBTQ+ rights have, have been recognized by both the National and Colorado LGBTQ+ Bar Associations.

Pelecanos is a staff attorney at Lambda Legal, specializing in constitutional and civil rights law, where they have worked since tw- twenty twenty-three.

They earned their JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law with a Constitutional Rights and Remedy certificate, and previously interned with the ACLU of Colorado and the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice.

A co-author of a published law review article tracing the US legal history of transgender discrimination, Pelecanos is also an active board member of the National Trans Bar Association.