LAMBDA LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND

Our legal work is supported by expansive public education and communication efforts that allow us to reach a wide range of audiences across multiple channels throughout the year. Lambda legal's communications department's expertise in print, broadcast, and social media helps lambda legal to reach not just members of the lgbtq+ community and all those living with hiv, but also extends to opinion shapers, lawmakers, and members of the legal community. We also released a ground-breaking report, "safe havens: closing the gap between recommended practice and reality for transgender and gender-expansive youth in out-of-home care", that offered strategies that promote well-being for tgnb youth in child welfare, juvenile justice, and homeless systems, and focused on the lived experiences of youth in care, as well aspublished "the alarming impact of trump's anti-lgbtq federal judges", detailing the negative impact of these federal judges on lgbtq+ civil rights. Lambda legal maintained a robust online presence that provided comprehensive resources, timely news, analysis, and commentary across multiple platforms, including our website, as well as facebook, instagram, youtube, medium and other social media channels. Through these platforms, lambda legal has published hundreds of pieces of content that can reach over a million or more people every week. Our innovative communications team continued to create and share projects including our successful speak out social media campaign, featuring uplifting transgender and nonbinary voice and our post-election update: the fight ahead briefing, hosted on youtube, which attracted more than 700 participants online and more than 2,000 views. These combined efforts generate tens of thousands of news stories annually and advance our goal of increasing awareness of the challenges lgbtq+ people face and our work to alleviate those challenges, as well as greater understanding within the lgbtq+ community of their legal rights. Where possible, we use attention around our litigation and policy efforts to promote broader public education on important issues. For example, our hiv work promotes our larger effort to drive policy informed by "science, not stigma." we do public education building on our cases on behalf of transgender youth and their families to support greater understanding and empathy for this vulnerable population. Our large portfolio of cases challenging efforts to dilute nondiscrimination protections against anti-lgbtq+ discrimination through the use of religion and speech-based arguments contribute to a larger effort to promote awareness of the ongoing problem of discrimination and the need for robust protections at all levels of government. Lambda legal's attorneys and other staff attend and speak frequently at local, regional, and national conferences and other public events, in addition to virtual participation via platforms created by lambda legal on our social media channels to ensure continuity in our public education efforts.