ACLU Hosts National Speaker on LGBT Rights

GayRVA Staff
May 6, 2009

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Read More: ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, LGBT Rights, Sharon McGowen

As part of their annual meeting, the ACLU of Virginia is hosting an event on LGBT rights with Sharon McGowan as keynote speaker. McGowan is a staff attorney with the National ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project and will present a talk titled, “LGBT Rights: Where Are We Headed?”

Sent in from the ACLU of Virginia:

Saturday, May 16, 2009
2:00-4:00 p.m.

Virginia Center for Architecture
(located at the Branch House– 2501 Monument Ave., Richmond)

Keynote Address: “LGBT Rights: Where Are We Headed?”

Sharon McGowan, National ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project

Q&A and reception to follow presentation

Please RSVP with the ACLU. Call (804) 644-8080. After business hours, dial extension 4 to leave a message with Elizabeth Wong. Or you can email acluva@acluva.org. Feel free to bring a friend!

–Free parking is available in the adjacent lot with entrances on Park Ave. and Robinson St.–

About Sharon McGowan

Our featured speaker is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was a member of the litigation team on Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down all state sodomy laws, including Virginia’s, in 2003.

As a staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project, Sharon has litigated in support of LGBT parents and has focused much of her attention on the balance between the ability of schools to prohibit anti-LGBT harassment and the First Amendment rights of students to express anti-gay views. She is the lead attorney in Schroer v. Billington, in which a D.C. federal court has ruled that the Library of Congress violated the federal law prohibiting discrimination because of sex when it rescinded the offer of employment made to its top candidate for the position after learning that she was in the process of transitioning from male to female.

Sharon co-authored the most recent edition of the ACLU publication, The Rights of Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexual and Transgender People (4th ed. 2004).

Prior to joining the LGBT Project, she worked on First Amendment and post-9/11 national security litigation as the William J. Brennan First Amendment Fellow at the National ACLU.

Sharon graduated with honors from the University of Virginia through the Jefferson Scholars Program in 1995.

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