National Center for Lesbian Rights

Founded in 1977, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) is one of the nation’s leading legal advocacy organizations for LGBTQ people, with an active national litigation docket and a strong track record of winning precedent-setting cases. Beginning with custody cases on behalf of lesbian mothers, NCLR has built a history of successful litigation and innovative legal theory and practice in LGBT family law. NCLR won key marriage equality cases. It was the first national LGBTQ legal organization to have introduced a Youth Project and has successfully defended against legal challenges to laws banning licensed therapists from practicing conversion therapy on minors. NCLR has a strong, recent record of winning cases on behalf of transgender youth, employees, and prisoners.

THE CASE

• 2022

  Tingley v. Ferguson, U.S.D.C., Western District of Washington, Case No. 3:21-cv-5359-RJB
  NCLR successfully moved to intervene on behalf of Equal Rights Washington to defend the state’s law prohibiting licensed therapists from performing therapy that seeks to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity. NCLR, with local co-counsel Raegen Rasnic of Skellenger Bender, P.S., has been defending the case alongside Washington state officials represented by the state attorney general. The law is being challenged by Brian Tingley, a therapist represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the country’s largest anti-LGBTQ legal organization.

  In August 2021, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed the challenge, holding that the law regulates a dangerous treatment, not speech, and therefore does not violate the First Amendment right to free speech. The court also rejected Tingley’s religious liberty claim. Tingley has appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which is expected to hear the case in 2022.

  SIX-MONTH REPORT

  YEAR-END REPORT

GRANT AMOUNT
$50,000 (2022)

nclrights.org