As Fordham Law School celebrates Pride Month, we caught up with members of Fordham’s OUTLaws’ outgoing and incoming e-boards about the student organization’s accomplishments of the 2022-2023 school year, including a brand new task force, hallmark events, and Pride Month 2023 activities.
New Task Force for Trans and Non-Binary Law Students Created
In the fall of 2022, OUTLaws established a new task force, Advocates for Trans* Law Students (ATLS), which looks forward to growing into its own student group in fall of 2023. ATLS looks to provide support for transgender and non-binary students at Fordham Law School as well as bring awareness to nationwide trans issues.
“We saw that there was a need for a trans community within the Law School. We are, first and foremost, a place for trans, non-binary, and gender questioning law students to come to where they feel like they have a community within the larger law school [environment]. We’re here to support each other and advocate for each other’s needs—not only at an institutional level here at Fordham Law, but also at the national level and throughout students’ careers [after graduation]. There’s a lot at stake right now for trans rights, and we are here to bring visibility to the barriers people put in front of us. Us being here is proof that we can break those barriers.” – ATLS Co-Founder Grey Cohen ’24
Read our Q&A with ATLS Co-Founders Grey Berkowitz ’25, Grey Cohen ’24, and August Naston ’25 about the group’s goals and the significance of its existence.
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Annual Alumni Awards Dinner
Members of Fordham’s OUTLaws’ incoming e-board at the student organization’s 2023 Alumni Dinner
OUTLaws’ Annual Alumni Awards Dinner, co-sponsored by ATLS, was held on May 17 at Storico Restaurant inside the New York Historical Society. This year’s venue was specifically chosen by the student organization given the Society’s plans to expand via a new American LGBTQ+ Museum, which will be New York City’s first museum dedicated to global, national, and local LGBTQ+ history and culture. Because the museum is slated to open in 2026, OUTLaws wanted to get as close as they possibly could to this history-in-the-making, celebrating the LGBTQ+ community and its rich history on the Upper West Side.
More than 60 people attended the event including distinguished guests and students, alumni, faculty, and staff from the Law School. Together, they honored and recognized alumni and pioneers working hard to promote LGBTQ+ equality in their respective fields.
This year’s honorees included:
- Charlie Arrowood, who received the Trailblazer Award
- Morgan Benedit, assistant director of conference services at Fordham Law, and Shanelle Holley, director of conference services at Fordham Law, who each received the Staff Excellence Award
- Professors Elizabeth Cooper and Jennifer Gordon, who each received the LGBTQ+ Professor of Year Award
- Dexter Heeter, who received the Advocate for Trans* Law Students Award
- Sahar Moazami, who received the Michael B. Davis-Elyse Hilton Alumni Award
- August Naston ’25, co-founder of Fordham Law’s Advocates for Trans* Law Students, who received the Student Advocate of the Year Award
“The Alumni Awards Dinner was a special moment for members of the OUTLaws and ATLS communities. As students, we celebrated the end of the school year, but more importantly, we honored several Fordham Law colleagues and LGBTQ+ advocates for their impactful work. Our event provided the space to reflect on our successes as student-led organizations, and to recognize the bright light that lay ahead in the leadership of our incoming executive boards. It was truly a beautiful night.” – OUTLaws’ Outgoing Events Chair Josh Cockream ’24
10th Annual Symposium
On March 23, OUTLaws brought together students, academics, activists, and attorneys interested in the development of LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S. and abroad for its 10th annual symposium titled “Privacy & Queer Rights: Freedom from Regulation of Gender and Sexual Identity.” In light of disruptive Supreme Court decisions, symposium co-chairs Kate Maguire ’24 and Mayu Tobin-Miyaji ’24 said they couldn’t think of a more prescient topic this year than exploring the foreboding intersection of privacy, sexuality, and gender. Their goal was to explore how recent developments in this intersection affect some of our community’s most vulnerable populations: children, youth, and people seeking life-changing healthcare.
Professor Elizabeth Cooper, OUTLaws’ faculty advisor, moderated the first panel, “Contextualizing Privacy Issues in LGBTQ+ Advocacy”; Adjunct Professor Michael Silverman, founder of Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, moderated the second panel, “School Surveillance of LGBTQ+ Students: Consequences and Intersectional Impacts”; and ATLS’ co-founders moderate the third and final panel of the day, “Healthcare Under Attack: Access to Gender-Affirming Care.”
“More legislation has been advanced to restrict the lives of LGBTQ+ people than at any other point in the nation’s history with trans people, and trans youth especially, being the most frequent target. These laws not only pose a fundamental threat to rights and freedoms, but they contribute to a culture of discrimination and intolerance with far-reaching consequences. They chill free speech, expression, and association and, by limiting the rights of people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, undermine the very principles of equality and justice that are at the core of our democracy. These laws also send a harmful message to young people struggling with their own identities, facing bullying or worse, and we have a responsibility—whether or not we are lawyers or future lawyers—to create a safe and supportive environment for all people regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity.” – Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Professor Joseph Landau
“Both Kate and I, along with Symposium Committee Members Grey Berkowitz ’25, Matthew Winter ’25, Sophie Adelman ’25, and Michael Gordon ’25 were very excited to see our work come to fruition for such a great event. The event room was full for the first panel, and it was wonderful to hear such diverse points of views from practitioners, academics and advocates on very important issues facing the queer community. We’re grateful to the support from OUTLaws’ e-board and the Center on Law and Information Policy for their sponsorship and advice in helping put together this event.” – OUTLaws’ Outgoing Symposium Co-chair Mayu Tobin-Miyaji ’24
View photos from the event:
Pride Month 2023
To celebrate Pride Weekend in New York City, OUTLaws and ATLS held a Pride Picnic at Sheep Meadow in Central Park on June 24.
ATLS will also be providing and notarizing name change petitions on Sunday, July 9, at the Trans Art Bazaar, the first trans/non-binary artisan market in New York City. (Note: ATLS does not provide legal assistance or representation; only notarized petitions.)
