Our History
Established in 2024, Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) was conceived in February 2022, when Texas state officials directed state child protection workers to investigate parents who were suspected of having provided their children with medically necessary transition-related healthcare. It was the first time that state officials had ordered this kind of investigation, and it represented a new, extremely frightening level of danger to our community.
Along with the record-setting attacks on the trans community in state legislatures across the country, we needed a stronger, bolder response to the unprecedented vitriol and legislative attacks on trans people nationwide. Two leading national trans civil rights organizations, National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) merged together to lead the next chapter of the transgender rights movement.
Our Beginnings
NCTE and TLDEF combined had 40 years of experience on the frontlines of advocacy. Both founded in 2003, the two organizations have long worked to make life better, safer, and more possible for trans people.
Since 2003, we have made enormous progress for trans people and our broader LGBTQI+ movement, and there are still many challenges ahead, but it is important to know where we’ve come from.
NCTE and TLDEF had a long history of partnering to fight for the legal rights and protections of trans people. While each organization had different areas of focus and utilized different tools, the overall values are the same.
What We've Done
Over the last twenty years, NCTE secured over 100 federal policy changes in various agencies and helped to defeat hundreds of anti-trans state bills across the country, and TLDEF saw major victories and had unflappable persistence in courtrooms across the country, having worked on some of the most significant trans legal victories in the nation.
In the mid-2010s, NCTE played a central role in transforming federal ID policies, including successfully advocating to ensure gender markers on U.S. passports can be changed without medical documentation. In 2009, TLDEF filed a case that led to New York State name change requirements no longer demanding a letter from a medical professional in order to change one’s name.
TLDEF tried cases across the country. In Colorado, in 2013, when six-year-old transgender girl Coy Mathis was denied access to the correct bathroom at school in Colorado, TLDEF secured the first ruling in the nation holding that transgender students must be allowed to use school facilities that match their authentic genders. And to learn more about trans people’s experiences in every state, in 2015, NCTE collected data for the U.S. Trans Survey, the largest survey ever devoted to the lives and experiences of transgender people, which had a massively historic 92,329 respondents in the next cycle in 2022.
In 2017, TLDEF sued Walmart for its trans-exclusionary healthcare policies on behalf of Jessica Robinson, a trans woman working at Sam’s Club, subsidiary of Walmart, who was denied access to both employment opportunities and necessary healthcare, and was harassed and intimidated by her coworkers when she announced her intent to transition. Crucially, the EEOC issued a finding in favor of Robinson.
NCTE advocated for the passage and implementation of state and local nondiscrimination laws and policies inclusive of gender identity and gender expression, mobilized thousands of trans people and loved ones to lobby lawmakers and share our stories, and then started the Trans Joy photo and story campaign, encouraging hundreds of trans people to share joyful and meaningful parts of our lives with the world.
In 2019, TLDEF and Lambda Legal filed suit on behalf of public employees in North Carolina who are either transgender or have family members who are transgender. At that time, the state health plan did not include coverage for trans healthcare. In 2022, a judge agreed that denying this healthcare is illegal, and that the state must ensure that employees have the coverage they need. This applied to over 750,000 people.
When NCTE and TLDEF were first established, elected officials refused to meet with the organizations simply because of the word “transgender” in our name. Today, we are making our voices heard and pushing for change in the halls of power. Both organizations increased and strengthened nondiscrimination protections for trans people at work, in housing, and in government services, demanded that medical professionals and elected officials protect our healthcare, made it possible for trans people to change our names and update our documents, and so much more. Because of our strong individual legacies, our new, combined efforts as A4TE give us the ability to meet the current and future challenges to trans rights.
Stay Informed
Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest news and opportunities for action delivered straight to your inbox.
Subscribe