Jennifer L. Levi is the Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights and a nationally recognized expert on transgender legal issues. Jennifer is actively in the fight against President Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders.  In two lawsuits, Talbott v. USA and Ireland v. Hegseth, she is litigating a ban on transgender people joining or serving in the military in his second presidency. Jennifer is also co-counsel in three lawsuits challenging an executive order that attempted to force transgender women in prison to be housed in men’s facilities. She led the legal fight against the first Trump Administration’s military ban in both Doe v. Trump and Stockman v. Trump.  

Jennifer’s role is that of architect and advocate for state legislative and policy reform. Their work also involves challenging new legal issues or interpretations brought before the court. Levi has represented clients in cases challenging improper denials of medical care as well as improper placement of transgender people in prisons and jails. Other precedent-setting transgender rights cases Levi has worked on include: 

Rosa v. Park West Bank, a case brought on behalf of a transgender woman denied a bank loan under the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act that laid the foundation for the recent Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County; 

O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (2010), which established that medical care relating to gender transition qualifies for a medical tax deduction; and 

Doe v. Clenchy (2014), in which the first state high court ruled that a transgender girl must be fully integrated into her public elementary school as a girl, including having full and equal access to restrooms. 

Jennifer was co-counsel in two landmark marriage equality cases, winning the freedom to marry for same-sex couples in Massachusetts (Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 2003) and Connecticut (Kerrigan v. Department of Public Health, 2008), and has led a number of key family law cases establishing important protections for families headed by LGBTQ parents including Sinnott v. Peck and Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins, both decided by the Vermont Supreme Court. 

Jennifer is a law professor at Western New England University, co-editor of Transgender Family Law: A Guide to Effective Advocacy (2012), and serves on the Legal Committee of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and a former law clerk to the Honorable Judge Michael Boudin at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.