I have supported Lambda Legal for nearly thirty years because I have benefitted from its work for justice, and because everyone does not yet share equally in those benefits. When my wife Kasz was dying, I took her to the emergency room, where I was accepted without question as her spouse, so when all hell broke loose, the ER physician took a quick medical history from me without pausing to look for someone else or ask where the “real family” was or proof of who I was. The time he saved by not doing any of that got him back to her quickly, and his quickness bought Kasz and me a day, and during that day, her sisters and two close friends got to the ER to say goodbye. The five minutes that bought us that last day took thirty years to get: thirty years of law and policy work and ongoing vigilance and responses when reality fell short of good laws and policies, and Lambda Legal and its volunteer Board members helped do that work.

As a transgender woman myself, I know how deeply these laws hurt. Our ordinary day-to-day activities are restricted or criminalized solely because we are trans, and we sometimes feel alone and discouraged. But we are not alone. I’m honored to stand with Lambda Legal as they wage the battle for LGBTQ+ equality during these precarious times. I’m grateful for their unrelenting advocacy in the courts and state capitals to safeguard the hard-won freedoms our community has secured through decades of perseverance.

In order to secure the future of LGBTQ+ rights, we must continue carrying the torch forward now. Our community is under attack from individuals who want to roll back our protections. We cannot and will not let that happen. We hope Lambda Legal will continue thriving and securing additional protections for the LGBTQ+ community and everyone living with HIV.

We live in troubling times. After years of positive momentum in the fight for LGBTQ+ equality, we are seeing our rights under attack as bad actors seek to roll back our rights for the sake of political expediency. We have to fight back in every arena—at the polls, in the media, and perhaps most crucially, in court, where there is no one better to have on our side than Lambda Legal. Investing in Lambda constitutes an investment in gender affirming healthcare, in sports equity, in economic justice for LGBTQ+ people. An investment in Lambda Legal is an investment in our future.