Lavender Law

CHLP Senior PJP Attorney Jada Hicks and Policy and Advocacy Manager Amir Sadeghi will be presenting at the annual Lavender Law conference hosted by the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association in New York City on Tuesday, July 29, 2025.

HIV Criminalization in the Trump Era: State and Local Strategies for Success
10:30am

Speakers:
-- Jada Hicks (CHLP)
-- Nathan Cisneros (Moderator) (Williams Institute UCLA School of Law)
-- Jose Abrigo (Lambda Legal)
-- Michael Elizabeth (Equality Federation)
-- Kate Mozynski (Equality Ohio)

HIV criminalization reformers enjoyed unprecedented engagement with the federal government during the Biden administration. From DOJ to HHS to the Office of National AIDS Policy and the President himself, the executive branch made increasingly clear calls for states to reform or repeal outdated HIV-related criminal laws. All that changed with the incoming Trump administration. Resources previously available, such as the federal policy documents calling for HIV criminalization reform, have been scrubbed. HIV testing and treatment services have been cut or jeopardized. DOJ has ended all investigations into possible ADA violations in HIV criminal enforcement. Indeed, the word HIV itself now appears to be a sensitive topic within the federal government, and no one expects any major criminal legal system reforms for the foreseeable future. 

How are advocates, reformers, and legal practitioners responding to this changed political and policy landscape? What strategies for moving forward look promising with litigation, legislation, and the like, and what avenues have been foreclosed? In this session, participants will hear how lawyers and advocates are moving forward with HIV criminalization reform at the state and local level, given a difficult and uncertain federal environment. Panelists will (1) review the changed federal position on HIV policy and HIV criminalization, (2) explore legal wins and failures in politically challenging state and local environments, and (3) detail new tools, strategies, and legal arguments for pushing forward with reform in both the short- and medium-term. Panelists will also take stock of how to continue this work in a sustainable way—both personally and professionally—whatever a person’s engagement with the legal profession.

The Misuse of Public Health Law and the Criminalization of Trans Communities and Communities of People Living with HIV
3:30pm

Speakers:
-- Amir Sadeghi (CHLP)
-- Milo Inglehart (Moderator) (Transgender Law Center)
-- Harper Seldin (ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project)
-- Robert Suttle (Robert Suttle Consulting)

How do we respond when laws criminalizing our communities are cloaked in the language of public health? As attacks on trans communities escalate, many are justified using the language of public health. A stable of paid experts have made careers supporting these attacks, citing debunked concepts such as social contagion theory and high regret rates, and even helping to form new medical organizations to oppose access to care. People living with HIV have also faced criminalization fueled by a lack of understanding combined with moral panic, with states passing waves of laws in the 1980s and 1990s criminalizing HIV status. Even as understanding of and treatment for HIV has advanced, these laws’ protectors invoke inaccurate and stigmatizing misconceptions, ignoring the reality of HIV transmission and care today. This workshop will use these two cases of systemic harm to explore how public health can be leveraged against vulnerable groups, with a particular focus on how race, gender, and ability have influenced who faces the highest risks. Panelists will explore how opponents have used expert witnesses and ideologically-motivated research to stoke bias, organizing in the wake of these actions, and how to combat politicized pseudo-science in the courtroom, legislatures, and beyond.