Press Releases
about LGBTQ Rights

In a 1965 case to combat racial and gender discrimination in jury selection, Pauli Murray’s imaginative and visionary legal theory shows how pushing the boundaries of legal frameworks can expand who the Constitution protects.

Following the Oregon Department of Corrections’ unconstitutional treatment of a transgender prisoner, a habeas court ordered her removal from segregated housing, an individualized gender-affirming care assessment, a psychiatric evaluation, and identification of an appropriate cellmate. However, the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the psychiatric-evaluation and cellmate orders, finding them “too attenuated” to qualify as habeas relief. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Oregon, joined an amicus brief by the law firm Sugerman Dahab arguing that habeas courts have broad discretion to remedy violations and resulting harms. The brief explains that the Court of Appeals’ “close connection” test unduly constricts habeas relief, and which should be construed to encompass not only the need to halt ongoing constitutional violations, but also the need to mitigate various harms that may arise from those violations.

Six transgender residents of Idaho filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging HB 752, a 2026 state law that criminalizes their use of sex-designated public restrooms consistent with their gender identity.