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The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) allows immigrant survivors of domestic violence to self-petition for legal status in the United States without relying on their abusive U.S. citizen spouses to sponsor their adjustment of status (i.e., “green card”) applications. VAWA self-petitioners must prove that they are persons of “good moral…

On June 24, 2021, the Governor of New York signed into law the Gender Recognition Act, and Proskauer employees came together in celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month to support transgender equality and inclusion in all areas of public life.

With special guest speakers Chris Mosier of Transathlete.com and Sasha Buchert of Lambda Legal, Proskauer associate Ren Morris and Craig Convissar of The LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York (LeGaL) led a conversation about the recent wave of state-level anti-transgender legislation, much of which has targeted transgender youth.

It is either a crime or fundamentally unsafe to be LGBTQ in more than 80 countries around the world. For the LGBTQ individuals forced to flee such conditions, seeking asylum in the United States is an opportunity to lead authentic lives safe from emotional harm and physical violence.

However, due to recent legal and policy developments, LGBTQ asylum seekers are facing new challenges as they struggle to navigate the U.S. immigration system. During a recent panel presentation at Proskauer’s New York office, Immigration Equality—the nation’s leading LGBTQ immigrant rights organization—teamed up with Bloomberg LP and Proskauer to educate pro bono lawyers about these developments and enable them to represent LGBTQ asylum seekers.

Immigration Equality’s Executive Director, Aaron Morris, began the program by describing the harmful effects expected to result from the “Presidential Memorandum on Additional Measures to Enhance Border Security and Restore Integrity to Our Immigration System” issued on April 29, 2019. This memorandum orders the Attorney General and the Department of Homeland Security to impose a filing fee for asylum applications and initial employment authorization applications filed by asylum seekers. At present, there is no fee for these applications. The memorandum also directs that asylum applicants who “entered or attempted to enter the United States unlawfully” should be barred from receiving employment authorization while their asylum applications remain pending. These policy changes, if implemented, will cause significant hardship for LGBTQ immigrants fleeing persecution, many of whom are unable to afford filing fees and will struggle to support themselves in the U.S. if they are not permitted to work lawfully here.

For many transgender people, undergoing gender-affirming surgery is a crucial step toward a healthy gender transition. While not all transgender people need or want gender-affirming surgeries to be part of their transitions, receiving such surgeries may be life saving for some who do.

The American Medical Association has established that gender-affirming surgery is effective and medically necessary for many individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition resulting from an incongruence between one’s experienced or expressed gender and one’s gender assigned at birth. The symptoms of gender dysphoria can include distress, depression and suicidality.

Surveys show that 41 percent of transgender Americans report having attempted suicide, and there is a clear link between these high rates and the lack of transition-related health care coverage.

Today, an increasing number of medical practitioners are recognizing the importance of providing appropriate, non-discriminatory, and patient-centered health care to people born with intersex traits.  “Intersex” is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of inborn variations in sex characteristics that do not seem to fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Considered a sex and gender minority by the National Institutes of Health, between 0.05 percent and 1.7 percent of the population is born with intersex traits.

Care of intersex individuals, particularly children, demands special attention to avoid biases based on outdated understandings of sex and gender. To assist hospitals in offering intersex-affirming health care, pro bono attorneys at Proskauer teamed up with nonprofit legal organizations interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth and Lambda Legal to create an educational policy guide designed to better educate hospitals about the unique needs of intersex patients and address the bias and insensitivity intersex patients and their families all too often face in a health care setting.