Transgender Law Center

Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest national trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people. While our “origin story” is rooted in legal and advocacy models that had proven effective in the push for lesbian, gay, and bisexual equality, TLC has consistently recognized the complexity of the barriers facing TGNC communities and the need to invent our own work and fill our own movement gaps. In this process, TLC has learned from LGB, POC, and other movements. Listening to community needs and deeply engaging community members has been central to all of their organizational planning models. Recognizing the limited opportunities across the U.S. for growing and networking trans activists and leaders, they have invested in leadership development and movement building as core strategies. TLC’s advocacy and precedent-setting litigation victories—in areas including immigration, employment, prison conditions, education, identity documents, and healthcare—protect and advance the rights and opportunities of TGNC people across the country, even as TLC assists, informs, and empowers thousands of individual community members a year and builds towards a long-term, national, trans-led movement for justice. TLC has been a key leader in the immigrant rights movement and specifically in advocating for the rights of TGNC immigrants since 2013. Transgender Law Center received $80,000 in funding for 2022 and 2023.