In 2019, the ACLU of New Jersey, led by attorneys Jeanne LoCicero, Alexander Shalom, and Tess Borden, along with attorney Robyn Gigl of Gluck Walrath LLP, sued the New Jersey Department of Corrections and its officers on behalf of a transgender woman. As part of the settlement of that case, New Jersey adopted a system-wide policy to improve conditions for incarcerated transgender people that included presumptively housing people in custody in line with their gender identity, and not sex assigned at birth. Only a few other states in the nation have such protections in place.
The presentation will feature Jeanne LoCicero, Legal Director of the ACLU-NJ, and Attorney and Author, Robyn Gigl, discussing Doe v. NJ Department of Corrections, the legal strategy, the landmark settlement, and the settlement implications for transgender and non-binary identified people in custody. Robyn will also discuss how her experiences as an attorney and transgender woman have influenced her novels, By Way of Sorrow, Survivor’s Guilt and her most recent novel, Remain Silent, which feature Erin McCabe, a transgender criminal defense attorney and all of which touch on issues involving the incarceration of trans identified characters.
Copies of Robyn Gigl’s Remain Silent (Kensington Publishing, May 23, 2023, hardcover, $27) will be available for purchase at the event (along with earlier titles by Gigl). We strongly encourage you to reserve a copy of any books you plan on purchasing to ensure that we have plenty of copies on hand. Please write to us with “Please reserve a copy of Remain Silent” in the subject line: contact@bgsqd.com.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served. Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work. All are welcome to attend, with or without donation. A bag will be passed for donations at the start of the event, and will also be accepted through credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.
Robyn Gigl, the author of the Erin McCabe legal thrillers, is an attorney, speaker and activist who has been honored by the ACLU-NJ and the NJ Pride Network for her work on behalf of the LGBTQ community. Appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to the Court’s Committee on Diversity Inclusion and Community Engagement, she’s practiced law for more than 40 years, representing clients in state and federal courts. She is active in the New Jersey State Bar Association where she is a member of the Women in the Profession Section and a Past Chair of the Bar’s LGBT Rights Section. She also is a member of the Board of Directors of Garden State Equality, NJ’s largest LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Organization. A frequent lecturer on diversity issues, she lives in New Jersey and can be found online at RobynGigl.com or on Twitter @RobynGigl.
Jeanne LoCicero is the Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. She supervises the litigation program and related advocacy of the ACLU-NJ’s Legal Department and manages its 10+ person staff. Jeanne joined the ACLU-NJ as a staff attorney in 2004 and served as its Deputy Legal Director for ten years prior to becoming legal director in 2018. She has litigated and advocated in a wide range of civil rights and civil liberties cases, with a focus on prison conditions, racial equity, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, and reproductive health. She recently served on New Jersey’s Transgender Equality Task Force, is a trustee of the Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey, and serves on other legal and policy committees. Jeanne started her legal career as a legal fellow at the ACLU of Alabama after graduating with highest honors from Rutgers School of Law – Newark. She spent three years in private practice before joining the ACLU-NJ.
