Jennifer Levi learned early that rights can be won — and taken away. As a young queer person, they watched Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign help overturn a gay rights ordinance in South Florida. The defeat “stabbed at my soul,” Levi says. Rather than let that memory become a burden, they made it fuel.
Across more than three decades, the transgender and queer civil rights attorney has taken on some of the movement’s hardest legal fights. Levi brought pioneering cases for transgender students more than 20 years ago and helped shape legal strategies involving health care, identity documents, and military service.
Today, the GLAD Law attorney is challenging the Trump administration’s transgender military ban, fighting efforts to move transgender women into men’s prisons, and defending gender-affirming care. Amid an accelerating federal assault, Levi is focused on sustaining that work at scale without sacrificing precision or resolve.
“Don’t wait for things to feel safe before you act on what matters,” Levi says. “That moment is unlikely to come.”
What gives them hope is a rising generation of lawyers ready to lead. Levi’s next project is helping transgender people gain authority across industries and institutions: “real power from the inside,” capable of changing how those institutions understand themselves. @gladlaw
