TLDEF Names Kylar W. Broadus Senior Counsel
Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund announces the appointment of Kylar W. Broadus to the position of Senior Counsel within TLDEF’s growing impact litigation program, headed by TLDEF’s Director of Impact Litigation, Ezra Young. Broadus is a nationally renowned attorney, activist, public speaker and former professor who is universally admired by advocates across the LGBT rights movement.
He has spent decades fighting for the rights and dignity of the most vulnerable in our communities and shown immense resilience overcoming the bias he has faced as a Black transgender man who was once fired for living openly.
“We are privileged to welcome Kylar Broadus to our team,” said TLDEF Executive Director Jillian Weiss. “Kylar is a monumentally positive force in our transgender civil rights movement who has devoted his career to improving the lives of our diverse communities.”
“His vast legal experience, combined with relentless activism, will deepen TLDEF’s litigation capacity at a time when transgender people have great need of legal representation,” said Young. “Kylar has contributed to significant transgender rights advancements, and we are grateful to have him by our side. He will bolster TLDEF’s efforts to fight anti-transgender discrimination in employment, education, health care and public accommodations.”
Broadus is from Missouri and spent more than 20 years as a professor of business law at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. He has also owned his own private legal practice in Columbia, Missouri since 1997. In 2010 he founded Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC), a national civil-rights organisation dedicated to the needs of transgender people of colour. In 2011 he was awarded the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Sue J. Hyde Award for Longevity in the Movement. In 2012 Broadus became the first openly transgender person to testify before the United States Senate, advocating support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that would clarify that existing federal laws reach sex discrimination experienced by LGBT Americans. He went on to serve as DC Senior Policy Counsel, Director of the Transgender Civil Rights Project at the Task Force from 2013 to 2015. He served on the National Black Justice Coalition’s board of directors and was chair from 2007 to 2010. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Freedom for All Americans since November 2016.
“As a Black transgender man who has faced discrimination first hand and devoted my career to lifting the voices of others who have endured similar bias, I am thrilled to join TLDEF and bring my personal and professional experience to bear in furthering its vital work,” Broadus said. “Our movement has gained unprecedented visibility and achieved many victories in recent years. But our trans communities still have an uphill battle in securing necessary protections that allow us to be safe in our communities, make a sustainable living and lead happy, healthy lives, free from harassment and violence. I am ready to roll up my sleeves alongside the TLDEF team and get to work in this next phase of my transgender civil rights journey.”
Broadus begins as TLDEF’s Senior Counsel today.