Janson Wu

In 2017, GLAD (GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders) joined with the National Center for Lesbian Rights to challenge the Trump administration’s ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military—and won. It was just the latest victory in GLAD’s decades-long struggle for equality and justice for LGBTQ people and those with AIDS. In this video, GLAD’s executive director, Janson Wu, reflects on the importance of the organization’s legal work at a time when LGBTQ communities face an array of new challenges, including “religious freedom” laws that give people and institutions a license to discriminate. “What the law says makes a difference,” Wu says, making clear GLAD’s commitment to creating a society where the government and its laws affirm the “legitimacy and beauty of the LGBTQ community.”