Court Cases

This case challenges the City of Key West’s selective enforcement of regulations against residents who painted fence pickets in rainbow colors to protest the city’s removal of rainbow crosswalks. Installed in 2015 as a symbol of inclusion for Key West’s LGBTQ+ community, the rainbow crosswalks were among several removed in Florida in 2025 after the DeSantis administration threatened local governments with financial penalties if they did not remove them. Following the removal, Coley Sohn and Linda Bagley-Sohn painted some pickets on their fence in rainbow colors, inspiring many other Key West locals to join their protest. The city cited the rainbow fences for violating local ordinances, but has chosen not to cite other noncompliant households for similar fence-color violations.

Our client Naples Pride, a nonprofit that provides services and hosts events for the LGBTQ+ community, filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Naples and its entities for denying the non-profit organization a special events permit to host a family-friendly drag performance in one of the city’s public parks as part of its annual Pridefest celebration. The city’s refusal to grant a permit was part of a years-long effort to target drag performances and LGBTQ+ pride events in violation of the First Amendment. The complaint was filed on April 10, 2025. The district court granted a preliminary injunction on May 12, 2025, but the Eleventh Circuit — in a split, 2-1 decision — placed a stay on that ruling on June 6, 2025, the day before the event. The event went forward on June 7 with the drag performance indoors.

We filed suit on behalf of two transgender women and one transgender man who were state employees denied coverage for gender-affirming care in their state healthcare plans. All of the state healthcare plans, including those provided to the Plaintiffs, explicitly exclude coverage of “gender reassignment or modification services or supplies.” These plans single out transgender employees for unequal treatment by categorically depriving them of coverage for gender-affirming care through their exclusions. Other state employees who are not transgender do not face categorical exclusions barring coverage for medically necessary health care. We filed the case in January 2020 with claims arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We amended our complaint in April 2020. Summary-judgment briefing was completed in March 2021. In August 2024, the judge granted partial summary judgment for plaintiffs, holding that the categorical exclusions violate Title VII. Supplemental briefs were ordered on the effect of a related decision pending in the Eleventh Circuit (Lange v. Houston County, Georgia). On November 3, 2025, the Defendants filed a motion to reconsider the partial summary judgment in light of the full Eleventh Circuit’s en banc decision in Lange.

On September 30, 2024, the Florida Department of Corrections issued a health services bulletin setting new rules for the medical care that would be provided to transgender people in its custody. Contrary to the medical mainstream, the bulletin suggests those seeking hormone therapy may have endured “short-termed delusions or beliefs which may later be changed and reversed” and recommended against providing any gender-affirming medical care unless extensive barriers were overcome. That same day, at Florida Department of Corrections facilities across the state, transgender inmates were rounded up and informed that FDC policy had been changed, “up to and including hormone therapy.” They were specifically told that they would no longer have access to clothing and grooming standards that accord with their gender identity and would have 30 days to comply. Transgender women like our clients Reiyn Keohane, Sasha Mendoza, and Sheila Diamond were told that those who did not cut their hair in compliance with male grooming standards would be forcibly shorn, and those who did not turn in their female undergarments and feminine canteen items would be disciplined. Transgender men like our clients Karter Jackson and Nelson Boothe were told that those who did not turn in their male undergarments and male canteen items would be disciplined. In October 2024, the ACLU filed emergency litigation on behalf of Reiyn — who has been receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy and clothing and grooming accommodations while in FDC custody since 2016—and a proposed class of transgender inmates with gender dysphoria, on the grounds that the new policy constitutes a violation of their Eighth Amendment right to medically necessary care. The ACLU previously filed a 2016 lawsuit on behalf of Reiyn that led to the now-rescinded policy permitting access to hormone therapy and female clothing and grooming accommodations for transgender women in FDC custody, which for more than six years permitted hundreds of transgender inmates to access needed gender-affirming care. On January 31, 2025, the district court denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case, and the parties proceeded to discovery. On October 22, 2025 the district granted class certification for all inmates in FDC custody with gender dysphoria who are denied social accommodations.