November Letter from the Board

It’s a difficult day for our community.  It may be a truism to say that we’ve been living through difficult days for a while.  Many of us on the Board are afraid for the future, and I’m sure many of you are, too.  At our latest board meeting, we opened by discussing what we’re doing to take care of ourselves and our loved ones in the face of everything.  None of us have easy answers.  We’re all doing what we can to hold space for grief, anger, and fear as we plan for the difficult days to come.  Others on the Board will be sharing more on that in the coming days.
 

For now, one thing I’ve found helpful is to remind myself that the bad news, while very real, isn’t universal.  We got some very good news last night: Delaware State Senator Sarah McBride became the first openly trans person elected to U.S. Congress.  She’s far from alone.  Last night, Kim Coco Iwamoto officially became the first openly transgender legislator in the state of Hawai’i, and Aime Wichtendahl became the first openly transgender legislator in the state of Iowa.  Transgender folks were elected or re-elected to statewide office in Colorado (Brianna Titone), Delaware (DeShanna Neal), Minnesota (Liish Kozlowski, Brion Currany Leigh Finke), Montana (Zooey Zephyr), Pennsylvania (Abigail Salisbury), and Vermont (Brian Cina), and are leading as of the time of this writing in Arizona (Lorena Austin).  We won or held onto local offices in Washington County, Arkansas (Evelyn Rios Stafford), Berkeley, California (Alfred Twu and Xavier Johnson), Chicago, Illinois (Precious Brady-Davis), Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky (Emma Curtis), Ypsilanti, Michigan (Amber Fellows), Grand Rapids, Michigan (Eleanor Moreno), Lodi Township, Michigan (Leslie Blackburn), Woodbury, New Jersey (Jo Miller), and my hometown of Norman, Oklahoma (Helen Grant). 

There’s good news in the judicial branch as well.  Advocates (including the NTBA’s own Shane McCammon) recently won summary judgment on their claim that a federal law prohibiting TRICARE coverage of gender-affirming care for dependents of U.S. servicemembers was unconstitutional as applied.  Doe v. Austin, Order on Cross-Motions for Summary Judgment, Docket No. 2:22-cv-00368 (D. Me. Nov 1, 2024).  On December 3, The U.S. Supreme Court will swear in another eight transgender attorneys to the Supreme Court Bar, just twenty-four hours before Chase Strangio will become the first openly trans attorney to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court.

To be clear: none of this means that the bad news isn’t real and doesn’t matter.  You don’t need me to tell you how much it does.  But if the losses matter, the victories have to count for something, too.

We are with you all in grief, in anger, and in hard-won, desperate hope.

-Riley T. Robertson
Junta Directiva de la NTBA