Transgender Rights in Illinois

In a special event co-hosted by ACS, ACLU NLaw, the Diversity Coalition, and If/When/How, students will hear from an expert panelists on transgender rights. The panel will include Lee VanderLinden and Ghirlandi Guidetti. They will provide a practitioner's perspective on representing LGBTQ individuals in a variety of contexts, followed by them answering a few questions.

Lee VanderLinden (they/theirs) is a staff attorney for the National Immigrant Justice Center’s LGBT Immigrant Rights Initiative. They represent LGBTQ immigrants in a variety of immigration matters, including affirmative asylum, family petitions, and removal defense. Lee graduated with a degree in politics from Princeton University and obtained their J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. 

Ghirlandi Guidetti (he/him/his) is a Staff Attorney in the ACLU of Illinois’ LGBTQ & HIV Project where he is involved in a broad range of advocacy and litigation on behalf of LGBTQ individuals and people living with HIV. Since he joined the ACLU in the fall of 2015, Ghirlandi has focused his practice on representing youth, including students whose schools have denied them use of the facilities that match their gender identity, solely because they are transgender. He has also utilized the ACLU’s long-standing consent decree with DCFS (B.H. v. Smith) to investigate the experiences of LGBTQ youth in the child welfare system and advocate for reforms to better protect and serve this vulnerable population. Ghirlandi is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago where he earned his J.D. and a Master of Public Policy degree.