LGBTQ Rights

The LGBTQ Project fights discrimination and moves public opinion through the courts, legislatures and public education across five issue areas - and beyond.

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The ACLU works to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people can live openly without discrimination and enjoy equal rights, personal autonomy, and freedom of expression and association.

The LGBTQ Project fights discrimination and moves public opinion through the courts, legislatures and public education across five issue areas -- and beyond these areas, too:

  1. Relationships
  2. Youth and Schools
  3. Parenting
  4. Gender Identity and Expression and Discrimination in Employment
  5. Housing

The Latest

Know Your Rights
A name tag on a denim jacket that reads, "Hello, my pronouns are he/they."

Know Your Rights: Use of Names, Pronouns, and Restrooms in Public Schools

Resource
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News & Commentary
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Extremist Politicians and Special Interest Groups Are Trying to Divide Us

Extremist politicians and special interest groups are trying to divide us. From hateful attacks on our LGBTQ+ community to an assault on our voting rights to extreme attempts to restrict our right to an abortion or erase our racist history while perpetuating systemic inequality, they placed our rights, our healthcare and our very lives in jeopardy. 
Press Release
Abortion is health care.

Supreme Court Issues Devastating Decision Overturning Roe v. Wade

The Supreme Court issued a shameful ruling today overturning Roe v. Wade — the landmark decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion nearly 50 years ago.
Issue Areas: LGBTQ Rights
Court Case
Apr 30, 2024

Gallagher v. Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration

The ACLU of Arkansas has initiated a lawsuit against the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) on behalf of five plaintiffs, contesting a recent emergency rule that restricts transgender and nonbinary individuals' ability to self-identify their gender on driver’s licenses.
Court Case
Apr 16, 2010

Cole v. Arkansas: LGBTQ Equality in Parenting

VICTORY! Cole v. Arkansas challenged Act 1 of 2008, a ballot initiative that prohibited fostering or adoption of children by unmarried couples; since Arkansas did not recognize the marriage of same-sex couples, this included not only unmarried same-sex couples, but same-sex couples married elsewhere. The intent of the law was to categorically ban same sex couples from consideration, without regard to the needs or relationships of the child to the potential foster or adoptive parents, or their suitability as parents.
Court Case
Oct 24, 2016

Fayetteville, Arkansas Ordinance: LGBT Equality

On April 25, 2017, the ACLU filed a motion to intervene in the case on behalf of three Fayetteville residents and PFLAG of Fayetteville/Northwest Arkansas, arguing that the Arkansas legislature’s attempts to nullify Fayetteville’s local non discrimination ordinance violates their right to equal prot
Court Case
Dec 01, 2016

Smith v. Pavan: Birth Records for Children of Same-Sex Couples Pre-Marriage

Same-sex couples who had children before marriage equality was the law of the land filed suit in state court in July 2015 in order to amend their children’s birth certificates to include the names of both parents without having to procure a court order, as the state required, although non-biological fathers in opposite-sex marriages are added to Arkansas birth certificates upon request and without a court order. After a lower court ruled that the Department of Health’s refusal to amend the birth certificates violated the couples’ rights to equal protection, the state appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which overturned the ruling.