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41st annual event marks in-person return to the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum after two years.

“As activists, we must remember the importance of celebrating ourselves and each and every step forward that we make. That’s how we’ll survive these challenging times.” –Byllye Avery and Ngina Lythcott

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) will honor Byllye Avery and Ngina Lythcott, renowned national leaders for reproductive justice, civil rights, and health equity, and noted civic leaders in Provincetown, at its annual Summer Party on July 23. Drag chanteuse Varla Jean Merman will be the celebrity emcee for the festivities, which takes place at the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum at 4:00 p.m. “We’re excited to gather in person again to honor Byllye and Ngina for their commitment to improving the health and well-being of Black women and other underserved communities, especially in the area of reproductive health, including access to abortion,” said Janson Wu, GLAD’s Executive Director. “It is especially important to lift up their work and their example after the Supreme Court’s rollback of Roe v. Wade, to inspire a new wave of leaders to continue the fight for true reproductive justice and health equity for women, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color.” Avery’s work as a health care activist and reproductive justice advocate stretches back to the 1970s, when she co-founded the Gainesville Women’s Health Center in Florida in 1974, the city’s first abortion and gynecological care clinic, in response to the lack of access to reproductive health care among low-income Black women in the community. In 1978, she helped found Birthplace, an alternative birthing center also located in Gainesville.

Avery founded the National Black Women’s Health Project in 1983 in Atlanta. Now known as the Black Women’s Health Imperative, it is the only national organization exclusively dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of Black Women. The project stemmed from her work as a board member of the National Women’s Health Network and kicked off with The Conference of Black Women’s Health Issues, which drew 2,000 women to the Spelman College campus in 1983 to address topics such as domestic violence, diabetes, sexual abuse, nutrition, sexuality, childbirth, mental health, and holistic wellness. As part of her work running the organization, Avery spearheaded the production of the 1987 documentary film “On Becoming a Woman: Mothers and Daughters Talking to Each Other,” in which two generations of Black women discuss menstruation, sex, love, and communication. In 1989, Avery was recognized for this work with a MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the “Genius Grant.” In 2002, she created the Avery Institute for Social Change to focus on healthcare reform and educating lawmakers on what women needed in the Affordable Care Act. Avery has written and lectured widely on the impacts of race, class, and sex on women’s healthcare. She has also served on the board of Outer Cape Health Services. Lythcott has had an equally long career as a public health practitioner and health advocate. In fact, when she and Avery met in 1989, Lythcott was the director of the Health Promotion Resource Center at Morehouse School of Medicine as well as a faculty member. She then joined the National Black Women’s Health Project’s Wellness Program advisory board. Lythcott was the dean of students at Dartmouth and Swarthmore Colleges and in the Schools of Public Health at Columbia and Boston Universities. A long-term breast cancer survivor, Lythcott has been active with several organizations working to eradicate the disease, including the Intercultural Cancer Council, where she is a current board member. Additionally, Lythcott has long been active in the American Public Health Association. She has done extensive community-based health promotion/disease prevention work with low-income members of diverse, urban, and rural communities, using a community organization and development model. She has also worked in Ghana, Tanzania, Brazil, Nigeria, and South Africa. She is currently a member of the Provincetown School Committee. Avery and Lythcott are as dedicated to each other as they are to social justice. The two have been in a committed relationship for 33 years and a married couple since their 2005 wedding at the Provincetown Pilgrim Monument. Both women currently serve as advisory board members of the feminist health and reproductive justice organization Our Bodies Ourselves. “It’s a high honor to be recognized by GLAD, an organization that shares our commitment to justice, lived equality, and equity,” said Avery and Lythcott. “We must remain committed to every women’s access to quality healthcare, including abortion, and our right to live and love as we choose. We must all recommit to engaging in this work that saves and changes lives, especially now—as our hard-won rights as women, LGBTQ+ people, Black people, and people of color are rolled back or otherwise threatened. As activists, we must remember the importance of celebrating ourselves and each and every step forward that we make. That’s how we’ll survive these challenging times.” In addition to honoring Avery and Lythcott, GLAD’s Summer Party offers spectacular views, a fun-filled live auction, delicious food, open bar, and fun kids’ activities. Children are welcome to attend at no charge. Varla Jean Merman will host a fabulous and exciting live auction featuring custom art, travel experiences, family adventures, and more. For those who can’t make it to Provincetown for the party, GLAD is also hosting an online silent auction to allow guests to participate in the fun from anywhere. Alix Ritchie and Marty Davis are the 2022 Summer Party’s High Tide sponsors. This year’s Summer Party marks the event’s return to Provincetown after a two-year absence due to health and safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The safety and well-being of our supporters continue to be paramount. For that reason, proof of COVID-19 vaccination is required for entry to the festivities. Social distancing and masks are highly encouraged. For additional COVID-19 safety information and to purchase tickets, visit the event page.

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Since the Supreme Court’s shameful decision overturning Roe v. Wade on June 24, we have heard from many LGBTQ+ people concerned about the security of their marriages and their families.

Together with COLAGE, Family Equality, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, we have put together an FAQ to provide information and answer your most important questions.

The resource, which will be updated as the impact of the Court’s decision develops, answers common questions like

What can I do right now to feel more secure and protect my marriage?
How can LGBTQ+ families take steps to protect themselves right now?

Please share it with others in your community who have concerns. While this is an unsettling time, GLAD is facing these challenges head-on, and we are here for you.

Check out the FAQ

If you have questions about your specific situation, reach out to GLAD Answers, our free, legal infoline.

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LGBTQ+ Litigating Organizations Call for Immediate Action to Reform the Supreme Court and Restore Democracy

“The Supreme Court has lost the public’s confidence in its integrity and has eroded its own legitimacy.”

Today, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center issued a clarion call for immediate, essential reforms of the U.S. Supreme Court, including adding additional seats to equal the number of federal judicial circuits and adopting an enforceable ethics code for Supreme Court justices.

In addition, the organizations called for lifting the filibuster to allow Senate consideration of Court reform and voting rights legislation.

The Joint Statement of GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center:

The undersigned national LGBTQ+ legal advocacy organizations litigate in our Nation’s federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court. We believe the time is long past due to recommit to the essential protections of liberty and equality and the right to vote for all Americans and for generations to come. The Supreme Court has lost the public’s confidence in its integrity and has eroded its own legitimacy. To regain a measure of balance and restore confidence in the Court and the rule of law, we call for the following as minimal essential steps:

Lift the filibuster at least to allow Senate consideration of Supreme Court reform and voting rights restoration.
Pass the Judiciary Act of 2021, H.R. 2584 and S. 1141, to expand the number of seats on the Court to equal the number of circuits in the federal judiciary.
Pass the For the People Act of 2021, H.R. 1 and S. 1; the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021, H.R. 4 and S. 4; and the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, H.R. 51 and S. 51.
Adopt an enforceable ethics code for the Supreme Court.

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Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated a half-century-old precedent protecting the Constitutional rights of women and all people capable of pregnancy, to access safe abortions. In doing so, the majority decision, written by Justice Alito, diminished the equal rights and status of women and cast doubt on the continued vitality of core Constitutional liberties that we have long taken for granted – from the right to access contraception to the freedom to marry. Others, such as Justice Thomas in his concurrence, openly invited litigation to overturn these cherished Constitutional rights.

Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor put it best, when they dissented “[w]ith sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection.”

Today we are feeling tremendous sorrow. Sorrow for people who may suffer serious health complications – including death – from a lack of abortion care or medical care for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies.

Sorrow for the people, including LGBTQ+ people, who will be forced to bear children and become parents against their will.

Sorrow for the members of our communities who are terrified right now about what’s next.

And finally, sorrow for our nation and our Constitution, whose promise of liberty is rapidly contracting with the Supreme Court’s radical departure from long-standing, judicial norms of respecting precedent.

Sorrow is disheartening and also necessary for healing. And we need to heal to be at our strongest for the fight ahead.

We have no choice but to be at our strongest and most resilient, because the fate of our nation rests upon our resolve never to give up.

Which path our nation goes down depends on what we do today, tomorrow, and the next weeks, months, and years ahead.

It will depend on how hard we fight, how deep we dig, how much we give.

It will be steered by how much love we offer to each other, how kind we are to strangers, how well we listen, and how loud we shout until we are heard.

We will not give up without a fight, no matter how hard it gets.

Generations of freedom fighters before us didn’t give their blood, sweat, tears, and at times, lives, for us to take the easy path.

Suffragettes didn’t fight over 70 years to pass the 19th amendment, and Black feminist leaders didn’t fight for another 40 years to extend the franchise to Black women, only for us to accept the Supreme Court’s relegation of women to second class status without a fight.

Generations of abortion providers didn’t risk their safety and at times lives to provide safe and affordable abortions to those who needed it both legally and illegally, for us to accept defeat silently.

And a new generation of activists are not continuing the fight to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, 50 years after it was first passed in Congress, for us to deem the mountain too steep to climb.

Freedom is never given, it must be fought for, and often refought over and over.

That is what it takes – resolve. And that is what we have as a community and as a movement:

The resolve and the resilience to get back to work day after day, to be vigilant in protecting the rights we have, and ferocious in our drive to keep our Constitution’s promise of liberty alive and ever expanding.

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Statement of Executive Director Janson Wu:

“Every person in this country should be deeply alarmed by this shameful ruling, which is simply not normal and should be beyond the bounds of what is thinkable for the body entrusted to uphold our constitutional freedoms. A majority of Justices of the Supreme Court has overturned a half-century-old precedent protecting a vital individual right – a right re-affirmed by this same Court as recently as six years ago – and held open the door for a return to dangerous government intrusion into our most personal decisions and freedoms.

There is no doubt this decision will have devastating consequences for millions of women and for anyone who can become pregnant. The consequences of restricting or completely banning abortion, as some states are poised to do, will fall hardest on people and families of color and those without the financial resources to travel out of state or seek alternative routes to care. This includes members of the LGBTQ+ community, who also get pregnant and need access to abortion care.

Today’s decision comes amid grave and escalating assaults on many fundamental liberties. We must rally together across all our communities to push back against these extreme assaults. We will fight alongside our partners and at every level of state and federal government and in the courts for the right of transgender people to access life-saving healthcare and for parents’ basic right to seek that care for their transgender children; for the rights of LGBTQ+ students and students with LGBTQ+ families to be welcomed and included in schools; to protect the recognition of our relationships; to ensure stronger protections for LGBTQ+ families and all families; and for access to abortion, contraception and reproductive choice.”

Learn more about the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Read Janson’s related blog post: From Sorrow to Resolve

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Today the Department of Education issued widely anticipated proposed regulations clarifying that Title IX’s prohibition against sex discrimination in education protect against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. The announcement of the new proposed rule comes as the country celebrates the 50th anniversary of Title IX of the Education of Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any school or education program that receives funding from the federal government.

“We celebrate and welcome the proposed regulatory updates issued today by the Department of Education making clear that Title IX protections extend to LGBTQ students,” said Jennifer Levi, Transgender Rights Project Director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). “These regulations provide vital clarity and reinforce important protections that LGBTQ young people need to thrive. Transgender young people are especially vulnerable to bullying, harassment and violence in school settings because of escalating state legislative attacks. The proposed rules issued today by the Department of Education send an important message to LGBTQ students and their families that federal law protects them. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Title IX’s passage, these welcome revisions fortify the promise that federally-funded educational institutions will ensure equal educational opportunities for all students.”

“These proposed regulations demonstrate a strong commitment to protecting educational opportunities for all students including LGBTQ students,” added GLAD Executive Director Janson Wu. “Especially in light of ongoing state legislative attacks, we are grateful for the Administration’s strong support of LGBTQ youth.”

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Today, President Biden signed an Executive Order Advancing Equality for LGBTQI+ Individuals, enacting a range of measures to protect LGBTQ+ youth, families, seniors and other vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Among its key provisions, the executive order seeks to protect LGBTQ+ youth and families from the effects of more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ state laws targeting access to medical care and support at school for transgender youth; protect children from the harmful and discredited practice of “conversion therapy,” safeguard LGBTQ+ health care and programs to prevent record high youth suicides; and support LGBTQ+ children and families with a new initiative to protect foster youth, prevent homelessness and improve access to federal programs. The order also strengthens supports for LGBTQ+ older adults and promotes expanded federal data collection on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The following statement is from GLAD Executive Director Janson Wu:

This executive order is an important step toward ensuring that LGBTQ+ Americans can freely access health care, equal educational opportunities, housing, and other basic needs at a time when our rights are being attacked and undermined in state legislatures nationwide. We are grateful to have a President who is committed to LGBTQ+ equality.

President Biden’s initiative to reduce the risk of youth exposure to the dangerous and discredited practice of “conversion therapy” is particularly important as it, along with other disrespect of young people’s identities, is linked to higher rates of suicide attempts and adverse mental health effects. While many states have banned conversion therapy, LGBTQ youth continue to be subjected to it—and right-wing lawmakers have sought to overturn the bans. In New Hampshire for instance, GLAD led a coalition that worked to prevent the legislature from overturning a state law outlawing conversion therapy.

As GLAD continues litigation against Alabama’s law criminalizing parents for obtaining essential health care for their transgender children—one of many such initiatives passed or pending in various states—we’re pleased that President Biden has directed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to release sample policies for states to expand access to health care for LGBTQ+ patients and specifically work with states to promote expanded access to gender-affirming care.

Finally, we applaud President Biden’s efforts to specifically recognize and address the needs of older LGBTQ+ Americans, who are particularly vulnerable due to fewer family supports, and the cumulative effects of stress related to decades of discrimination and stigma. GLAD recently settled a discrimination complaint on behalf of Marie King, a transgender woman who was denied a room at an assisted living facility, and we welcome the executive order’s directive that HHS publish new guidance on the non-discrimination protections for older adults in long-term care settings.

Read the President’s full order, learn more about GLAD’s litigation and advocacy, and support our tireless work for LGBTQ+ equality,

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GLAD has been advancing equality for LGBTQ+ families for more than four decades, and today on LGBTQ Families Day we want to celebrate our wins as well as acknowledge the challenges we still face. We achieved a landmark victory with the 2015 Supreme Court decision that affirmed marriage equality for the entire country. But there are still many gaps in protections for our relationships, so our work continues.

A major initiative that GLAD has been working on for years is ensuring that the laws that provide legal security for our children include the children of LGBTQ+ parents and all families. People form loving families in many ways, and we must ensure that the law recognizes and respects all of them.

Still vulnerable are the children of same-gender couples, as are children born through assisted reproduction, surrogacy, and more. They also include de facto parents like J. Shia, who raised her son from the day of his birth but still doesn’t have a secure legal tie to him even twelve years later.

We have successfully advocated for comprehensive parentage reform to be implemented in five of the six New England states – leaving only Massachusetts with outdated parentage laws. To join the work to get the MA Parentage Act passed, visit MassParentage.com.

The fight to protect our families is now taking on a different urgency, as the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ attacks continues in the form of legislation across the country. These vicious attacks are aimed at LGBTQ+ youth, especially transgender youth, including stripping away parents’ ability to affirm their transgender children and get them the healthcare they need.

GLAD is committed to fighting against these attacks, in New England and beyond. I am thrilled to share that in Massachusetts the MA Senate just successfully passed an amendment to its version of the state budget which includes protections for providers in Massachusetts who provide essential medical care for transgender youth from out of state. The amendment protects doctors, psychologists, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, and social workers who provide care to youth experiencing gender dysphoria from potential abusive lawsuits originating from other states. We will continue working to ensure this amendment is adopted in the final budget and signed by Governor Baker.

We are also challenging harmful anti-transgender legislation where it is being implemented, as with our recent lawsuit in Alabama, Reverend Eknes-Tucker v. Marshall. Alabama’s SB 184 criminalizes parents for obtaining essential medical care for their transgender children, as well as any provider for offering such evidence-based care. Thankfully, a federal judge granted our motion to block the law as our challenge continues, enabling families to continue accessing life-saving healthcare for their kids until we can hopefully overturn it for good.

So today, on the first day of Pride Month and LGBTQ Families Day, share the story of your family – however it was formed. I hope you are inspired by other families that are sharing with the #LGBTQFamiliesDay hashtag on your social network of choice. Sharing, connecting, and visibility are just a few of the strengths of our community. And this Pride season, I am so proud of our community, all we have accomplished, and all we will accomplish together.

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As Governor Polis is set to sign the “Donor-conceived Persons and Families of Donor-conceived Persons Protection Act,” advocates commended the state’s thoughtful approach to providing people conceived via assisted reproduction access to important donor information and praised the signing last week of legislation advancing legal parentage protections for Colorado families formed via assisted reproduction

May 31, 2022, DENVER, Colo. — Today Governor Jared Polis is expected to sign SB22-224, the “Donor-conceived Persons and Families of Donor-conceived Persons Protection Act,” legislation that takes a balanced approach to allowing people conceived via assisted reproduction access to limited important donor information. This follows the governor’s signing last week of “Marlo’s Law,” HB 22-1153, which enables LGBTQ parents who create families through assisted reproduction to more equitably establish their parentage, providing greater legal security for Colorado children.

The LGBTQ advocacy organizations COLAGE, Family Equality, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) submitted testimony in support of two key provisions in SB22-224:

a provision consistent with the Uniform Parentage Act of 2017 giving individuals of any age who were born through assisted reproduction using unknown donor gametes (“donor-conceived persons”) access to non-identifying medical information of their gamete donor; and
allowing donor-conceived persons over age 18 access to identifying information of their gamete donor beginning in 2025.

LGBTQ people build loving families in many different ways, and a significant number rely on assisted reproduction and egg, sperm, and embryo donation. LGBTQ parents, like so many parents, plan thoughtfully to build their families and can experience barriers and discrimination in family building and securing their children legally. COLAGE, Family Equality, GLAD and NCLR commended SB22-224’s thoughtful approach to allowing access to important donor information while maintaining safeguards to ensure that assisted reproduction, including gamete donation, remains accessible, affordable, and provided in a nondiscriminatory and inclusive way.

The organizations also stressed the importance that legislation like SB22-224 be adopted in conjunction with parentage legislation that provides legal security and recognition for families formed through assisted reproduction and praised Governor Polis for signing HB 22-115 last week. “Marlo’s Law” streamlines the process for confirmatory adoptions, ensures that Colorado’s parentage laws are gender neutral and explicitly inclusive of LGBTQ families, makes parentage presumptions gender-inclusive, expands access to establishing parentage through a Voluntary Acknowledgement of Parentage to intended parents through assisted reproduction, and makes Colorado’s assisted reproduction provisions gender and marital status neutral so that if you consent to assisted reproduction you are a parent to the resulting child.

The organizations issued the following statements:

Jordan Budd, Executive Director, COLAGE:
“We’re thankful that Governor Polis and Colorado lawmakers are thinking broadly about the importance of protecting families by enacting both H.B. 22-1153 and SB22-224 this session. Together these new laws will provide increased legal security and access to important donor medical information for families formed through assisted reproduction. As an organization dedicated to supporting people with LGBTQ parents, we know that children come into families in many different ways. We are pleased to see Colorado make such big strides in providing protections for LGBTQ families and for all children and families in the state.”

Shelbi Day, Chief Policy Officer, Family Equality:
“Children and adults who were conceived through gamete donation and their families are a multi-faceted community and we were pleased to see so many different stakeholders brought to the table in the development of SB22-224. Among the LGBTQ+ parents and intended parents in the Family Equality community there is a commitment to openness and honesty with their children about the circumstances of their birth through assisted reproduction. We support the structure that SB22-224 will provide for open and honest communication about family origins, and applaud Governor Polis for signing it this session alongside legislation that ensures Colorado’s parentage laws include LGBTQ+ people who form their family using assisted reproduction.”

Patience Crozier, Senior Staff Attorney, GLAD:
“We commend Governor Polis and the legislature for ensuring that all parent-child relationships and families are protected under Colorado law and for encouraging openness for donor-conceived people. H.B. 22-1153, signed into law last week, ensures that the children of LGBTQ parents are fully protected under state parentage law – protections that are crucial to children’s security and well-being. Legislation regarding family building raises many important issues and involves numerous stakeholders, including children and their parents. We applaud the thoughtful approach taken in Colorado to encourage openness for donor-conceived people while at the same time guarding against discrimination or increased barriers in family building and, importantly, ensuring legal security and recognition for families formed through assisted reproduction.”

Cathy Sakimura, Deputy Director & Family Law Director, NCLR:
“We applaud Governor Polis for signing SB22-224 together with HB 22-1153 this session to ensure both that donor-conceived persons have access to important information and that parent-child relationships in LGBTQ families are protected under the law. Many LGBTQ families are formed using donated sperm or eggs from unknown donors. Information about the medical histories of those donors and, once a child is an adult, the identity of donors, should be accessible to families who wish to know, while also safeguarding the privacy of families and protecting the recognition of families in every way they are formed. Laws addressing the release of information about sperm and egg donors must be passed alongside laws that respect families who are formed using assisted reproduction. We applaud Colorado for considering all of these important issues and passing SB22-224 along with HB22-1153 to expand protections for families formed through assisted reproduction.”

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New Law Strengthens Protections for LGBTQ Families; Pending Massachusetts Parentage Act Would do the Same

May 25, 2022 — On Monday, May 23, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed into law House Bill 22-1153, which enables LGBTQ parents who create families through assisted reproduction (AR) to more equitably establish their parentage, providing greater legal security for Colorado children. In addition to streamlining the process for confirmatory adoptions, the bill does the following to ensure that Colorado’s parentage laws are gender neutral and explicitly inclusive of LGBTQ families:

updates terms such as “paternity,” “father” and “mother” to be gender-neutral,
makes parentage presumptions gender-inclusive,
expands access to establishing parentage through a Voluntary Acknowledgement of Parentage to intended parents through AR, and
makes Colorado’s AR provisions gender and marital status neutral so that if you consent to AR you are a parent to the resulting child.

The following statement should be attributed to Patience Crozier, GLAD Senior Staff Attorney: “With the signing of this law, Colorado is ensuring that the children of LGBTQ parents are fully protected under state parentage law, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. These protections are crucial to children’s security and well-being, especially in times of crisis. By updating their parentage statutes to be gender inclusive and marital status neutral, Colorado has made sure that all families are protected equally under the law, and that is cause for celebration. “We hope the Massachusetts Legislature follows suit and passes the Massachusetts Parentage Act, a bipartisan bill to provide comprehensive parentage protections for the Commonwealth’s LGBTQ families—and many others—no matter how they are created. Love makes families—and our laws must protect them.”