Two of the largest transgender civil rights groups in the U.S. will merge into one this year, a move their leaders say will consolidate resources and political power to push trans rights forward.
The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF), both founded in 2003, announced they will combine their nonprofits into a new organization called Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) in a joint press release on Wednesday.
A4TE will be led by TLDEF executive director Andrea Hong Marra and NCTE executive director Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen as CEO and Executive Director, respectively. The merger is expected to be finalized sometime in summer 2024, and will establish two separate entities, according to the release: a 501(c)3 organization focusing on “litigation and public education,” and a 501(c)4 that will “influence policy to fight for transgender equality at local, state, and federal levels.”
A4TE will command “double the resources, expertise, and fearless commitment to justice” of its founding organizations, Marra said in the joint statement. “Advocates for Trans Equality will show exactly what can be materially achieved when trans advocates come together and seek nothing less than equality for trans people in America.”
With a record number of anti-trans bills filed in 2023 and at least 280 more already active in 2024, “now is the time to unite and use our combined power and influence to advance trans equality in bigger and bolder ways than our organizations could alone,” Heng-Lehtinen said.
TLDEF’s notable programs include the Name Change Project, which helps trans people amend official documents, and the Trans Health Project, which connects trans patients with specialized attorneys. It also files legal challenges against anti-trans laws and policies, such as its current push for the Supreme Court to outlaw gender-affirming care bans and a victory last year that requires Georgia to cover such care for all state employees.
The NCTE, in contrast, has focused its resources on political lobbying to secure numerous reforms over the past two decades, as well as organizing the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. (Analysis of the second such survey, conducted in 2022, is also expected to be completed this year.) It was also a major player in the 2007 fight to include gender identity in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), an ultimately unsuccessful bill that would have enshrined workplace anti-bias protections for a person’s sexuality but not gender.
