Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work. You can also find Lambda Legal on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr.

We pursue litigation in every area of the law that affects communities we represent, such as discrimination in employment, housing and the military; HIV-related discrimination; parenting and relationship issues; equal marriage rights; immigration issues and antigay initiatives.Lambda Legal’s work ultimately benefits all people, for it helps to fashion a society that is truly diverse and tolerant. Our overall mission to combat sexual orientation discrimination in this country has become an intrinsic part of the struggle for civil rights.

It was nothing short of a revolutionary idea 30 years ago — create a national legal organization dedicated to achieving full equality for gay and lesbian people. There were no groups whose principal mission was fighting for gay rights in the nation’s courts. And the courts initially tried to stop the first one. Lambda Legal’s application to be a nonprofit organization was denied unanimously by a panel of New York judges because, in their view, our mission was “neither benevolent nor charitable.” But just as we have countless times since, we fought on until we won.

In 1973, after nearly two years of legal battles, New York’s highest court finally allowed Lambda Legal to exist. A couple of volunteers set up shop in one room of a New York supporter’s apartment, eventually installed two phone lines, and got to work. Our strategy then — as now — was to secure legal precedents that solidified basic rights for LGBT people, then build on those victories to win full equality in all areas of life. From the outset, we complemented our legal work with educational programs for the general public and our own community. Lambda Legal focuses on improving gay and lesbian people’s day-to-day lives by concentrating on life’s major concerns: our relationships, our work, our communities, our freedom and safety, our children and our difficult experiences as young people.

In 1973, LGBT people had few clearly established legal rights. More gay people were coming out to their families, their employers and their communities in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots and the surge in LGBT visibility they sparked. Throughout the 1970s, Lambda Legal fought — and won — some of the nation’s first cases on behalf of gay parents and gay couples. We successfully fought for gay student groups and gay employees who faced blatant discrimination from state-funded universities. We took on the federal government for penalizing gay people and gay groups through discriminatory FBI and IRS practices, and prompted the government to stop barring gay immigrants from entering the country.
 
Throughout the 1980s, life for LGBT people changed dramatically, as HIV and AIDS ravaged our communities. In the early 1980s, Lambda Legal received dozens of calls a day from people with HIV or AIDS who were being refused treatment at hospitals, fired from their jobs, evicted from their homes or refused services at restaurants and stores because they had HIV. Lambda Legal won the first AIDS discrimination case in the nation in 1983, helping establish that under disability laws it’s illegal to discriminate against people who have HIV or AIDS. We forced insurance companies to cover HIV testing and treatments and pay benefits to those disabled by the disease. Lambda Legal also helped establish privacy rights for people with HIV and AIDS, including the right to keep test results and medical records confidential.   Over the past 30 years, LGBT life has changed significantly — and Lambda Legal has changed with it. We’ve learned more and more about how to use the court of public opinion to win for our community even when we can’t prevail in the court of law.

Today, Lambda Legal continues with our strategic efforts to win full equality piece by piece. We’re pushing forward with aggressive efforts to win marriage equality, the ability of LGBT people to be out at work and not fear being fired, full recognition of gay parents and the rights of LGBT people to be treated equally and fairly by their government in every way. We’ve grown from a couple of volunteers in someone’s apartment to a staff of more than 80 with a national headquarters and four regional offices across the country. Our first case — fighting for the right to exist and to become the nation’s most powerful force for LGBT legal rights — was about being recognized like everybody else and being treated equally. That’s the same fight we’ve waged with strength, strategy and success on behalf of LGBT people ever since. We’ve shaped the past 30 years, and now we’re shaping the future.