Two of the country's largest transgender rights organizations will merge

[Jessica_Rose]

Two of the country's largest transgender rights organizations will merge

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/two-of-the-country-s-largest-transgender-rights-organizations-will-merge/ar-AA1n7vVx?cvid=8ad62d023276420f89db4ab93431358d&ei=25

Story by Jo Yurcaba (17 Jan 2024)

Two of the country's largest transgender rights organizations are merging, telling NBC News that joining forces will allow them to better combat years of conservative efforts to roll back trans rights.

The National Center for Transgender Equality, or NCTE, a group that focuses primarily on federal policy reform, and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, or TLDEF, which works to advance trans rights through litigation, will merge by this summer to become Advocates for Trans Equality, or A4TE.

"We'll be able to operate with double the influence, double the power," said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director of NCTE, who will assume the same position at Advocates for Trans Equality. "At a time when states are considering a record number of anti-transgender bills, trans voices are needed now more than ever, and we have to be operating at a different scale."

The merger comes amid what many advocates have described as a crisis for LGBTQ people, but especially transgender people. Conservative lawmakers introduced more than 500 bills targeting LGBTQ people last year, shattering the previous year's record of 315. The majority of that legislation targeted trans minors, either by seeking to restrict their ability to play on school sports teams or limit their access to transition-related medical care.