Pelecanos (they/them) is a Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Western and South Central Regional Offices, and they are located and licensed in Colorado. Their work encompasses litigation, education, and policy advocacy.

Pelecanos’ current litigation centers on racial and gender equity, access to gender-affirming care and HIV care, the right to privacy in identification documents, bathroom access for transgender people, and appropriate housing in carceral settings. While their work predominately occurs in federal courts, they have a growing focus on defending and expanding trans rights under state constitutions. As discussed in their recent scholarship, they are also interested in the history of legal discrimination against trans people in the United States, from colonial times to the present.

Since the start of the second Trump administration, Pelecanos has defended the equality, nondiscrimination, and free speech rights of federal funding recipients in San Francisco AIDS Foundation v. Trump, GLMA v. NIH, National Urban League v. Trump, and American Academy of HIV Medicine v. HRSA. Because courts have enjoined federal agencies from implementing the Gender Executive Order and DEI Executive Orders in these cases, LGBTQ+ community centers, health centers, and scientific researchers have kept hundreds of millions of dollars in funding that would otherwise have been cut simply because it benefits LGBTQ+ people. The Colorado LGBTQ+ Bar Association honored Pelecanos for their work on these cases with its 2025 Spotlight Award.

Pelecanos came to Lambda Legal in 2023 as the Renberg Fellow, after a path that began well outside the courtroom. They worked as an immigration paralegal, led a Colorado nonprofit supporting trans youth and their families, formed the Boulder Police Oversight Task Force, and interned for Representative Brianna Titone, Colorado’s first transgender state legislator. At the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, they graduated Order of the Coif, served on the Board of the Denver Law Review, and published scholarship on LGBTQ+ rights under the Colorado Constitution. They also interned with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, the Tenth Circuit, the Colorado Supreme Court, and the ACLU of Colorado.

Today, Pelecanos serves on the Board of the National Trans Bar Association, helping trans law students and attorneys find community within the legal profession. They believe that interpersonal relationships and community building are our most powerful tools to achieve liberation for all.