This June, Nichols Kaster joins our firm’s LGTBQ employees, clients, friends, and family in support of Pride Month and affirms once again that everybody in our community deserves the right to live and love authentically.
June has been a difficult month for many in our community. As we reeled from the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, President Trump quietly revoked discrimination protections for trans people in the U.S. health care system. The following week, two black trans women— Riah Milton and Dominique “Rem’Mie” Fells— were killed within 24 hours, highlighting recent increases in fatal violence against trans individuals, particularly trans women of color, in America.
Nichols Kaster recognizes that Pride Month commemorates the June 1969 Stonewall riots, where LGBTQ people fought back against oppressive and discriminatory policing. Pride Month highlights that ongoing struggle against unjust treatment, unfair policies, and unequal access to jobs, housing, and healthcare. Individual bias and institutional racism magnify the inequities experienced by LGBTQ people of color, particularly trans people of color. We honor black trans women, like Marsha P. Johnson, who led and continue to lead us forward in the march toward equality.
Over the past year, Nichols Kaster has joined in that march by teaming up with Gender Justice to represent trans weightlifter JayCee Cooper, for example. We are also working to address trans healthcare discrimination in states across the nation. And Nichols Kaster continues to support organizations like Lambda Legal and OutFront Minnesota so that they may continue their important work on the national and local levels during Pride Month and beyond.
We invite others to contribute to these organizations and others after reviewing the attached resources page. We look forward to listening, learning, and growing with one another in pride and solidarity.
Suggested Resources from NKA’s LGBTQ Employees
Books
- Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton – https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/black-on-both-sides
- Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith – https://www.akpress.org/captivegenders2.html
- Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Eli Claire – https://www.dukeupress.edu/exile-and-pride?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=blog%20post&utm_campaign=b-NewBooks_July2015
- Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin – https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780345806567
- Lambda Legal’s 25 Black Queer Books to Honor Protests and Pride Month – https://www.lambdalegal.org/blog/20200612_25-anti-racist-black-queer-books
- New York Public Library’s Trans, Nonbinary, and GNC Voices to Help you Celebrate Pride – https://www.nypl.org/blog/2020/06/01/reading-trans-literary-landscape
- Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law by Dean Spade – https://www.dukeupress.edu/normal-life-revised
- Not Straight, Not White: Gay Men from the March on Washington to the AIDS Crisis by Kevin Mumford – https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781469652214
- Sister Outsider by Audre Lord – https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/198292/sister-outsider-by-audre-lorde/
- Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lord – https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780895941220
Other Sources
- Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen – available on Netflix
- OutFront Minnesota’s Pride Information – https://www.outfront.org/pride
- The Tretter Transgender Oral History Project –https://www.lib.umn.edu/tretter/transgender-oral-history-project?fbclid=IwAR3ILZyWuKtp7A1ObdVuSzhn81Xn6ezOrr2yHGNerphxXbYhDLzc-EULiao