Speaker Biographies

Matthew Coles is one of the nation's top-level litigators for LGBT rights and is a veteran advocate for the community. He is the author of "Try This At Home--A Do It Yourself Guide to Winning Lesbian and Gay Rights." He has been in charge of the ACLU's Lesbian & Gay Rights and HIV/AIDS Projects since 1995. Prior to joining the ACLU's national staff, he worked with the ACLU of Northern California and was the principal drafter of California's law banning discriminatino based on secual orientation in employment. Atty. Coles co-counseled Romer v. Evans, the challenge to Colorado's anti-gay amendment. In addition, along with Atty. Leslie Cooper, Matt received the Dan Bradley Award, NLGLA's highest honor in 2003, for among other things, his inspiring work on the Lofton Florida adoption case.

Jon W. Davidson, Esq. is the Legal Director of Lambda Legal, where he leads the 20 lawyers on staff in Lambda Legal's five offices. Along with the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the ACLU, Davidson is co-counsel in litigation challenging the denial to same-sex couples of the freedom to marry in California, and he has assisted in similar litigation handled by Lambda Legal in New Jersey, New York, Washington and currently Iowa, as well as the historic Hawaii marriage case. He also co-drafted California's Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act as well as the civil rights amicus brief submitted to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the case that resulted in same-sex couples securing the freedom to marry in that state. A 1979 graduate of Yale Law School, Davidson has worked full-time in the field of LGBT rights and rights of people living with HIV for nearly 20 years.

Professor William N. Eskridge, Jr. is the John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School. In 1990-95, Professor Eskridge represented a gay couple suing for recognition of their same-sex marriage. Since then, he has published a field-establishing casebook, three monographs, and dozens of law review articles articulating a legal and political framework for proper state treatment of sexual and gender minorities. The historical materials in the book on Gaylaw formed the basis for an amicus brief he drafted for the Cato Institute and for much of the Court's (and the dissenting opinion's) analysis in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which invalidated consensual sodomy laws. His most recent book is Gay Marriage: For Better or For Worse? (with Darren Spedale). Professor Eskridge received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Davidson College, his masters in History from Harvard, and his J.D. from Yale.

Kim Forde-Mazrui is the Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Professor in Law and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Law at the University of Virginia. Mr. Forde-Mazrui is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, where he received the Carl Gussin Memorial Prize for excellence in trial advocacy and the Henry M. Bates Memorial Scholarship, the highest award given to outstanding seniors. He was note editor of the Michigan Law Review and a member of Order of the Coif, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Golden Key National Honor Society. During law school, Mr. Forde-Mazrui was a summer associate with Dykema Gossett in Detroit, Michigan, and was program director for the University of Michigan Office of Minority Affairs. After graduation, Mr. Forde-Mazrui clerked for Judge Cornelia G. Kennedy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and worked as an associate with Sidley & Austin in Washington, D.C.

Phyllis Frye grew up in Texas as the all-American boy – an Eagle Scout and commander of her high school ROTC class. But when she came out as transgender in 1972, Frye lost her military career and her first marriage ended. She transitioned from male to female in 1976. As a result, she was dismissed from her job as an engineer. The next year, to fight depression and ensure a future income, she went back to school to study business administration and law at the University of Houston’s Law Center and College of Business. As a student, Frye successfully lobbied every elected official in Houston to get rid of the city ordinance against crossdressing that made her subject to arrest on a daily basis.

In 1979 and again in 1981, 1983 and 1985, Frye, then out as transgender, was elected as a delegate to the Texas Democratic Convention. She was instrumental in encouraging the Texas Democratic Party to adopt a GLBT-rights supportive plank in its official platform in 1983. Frye is the founder and former executive director of the International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy Inc. She also founded the Transgender Law Conference. In 1995, Frye began the "Phyllabuster" e-mail network that keeps thousands of activists around the world informed about related legal and political issues related to transgender people, as well as lesbian, gay and bisexual issues. Frye remains a practicing attorney in Houston, where she lives with Trish, her legal spouse of over 30 years.

Julie Greenberg, Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson Law School, is an internationally recognized expert on the legal issues relating to gender, sex, sexual identity and sexual orientation. Her path-breaking work on gender identity has been cited by a number of state and federal courts, as well as courts in other countries. In addition to her teaching and writing, she serves on a number of nonprofit organizations' boards of directors and has also been involved in a variety of community service projects relating to the rights of women and sexual minorities.

Kate Kendell is the Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a national legal organization committed to advancing the civil and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their families through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. Growing up Mormon in Utah, Kate learned about the complexities of religion and politics from an early age. After receiving her J.D. from the University of Utah College of Law in 1988 and a few years practicing corporate law, she pursued her real love—civil rights advocacy—and became the first staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah. There she directly litigated many high-profile cases focusing on all aspects of civil liberties, including reproductive rights, prisoners’ rights, free speech, the rights of LGBT people, and the intersection of church and state. In 1994 she joined NCLR as legal director, and was named executive director two years later. Kate and her partner, Sandy Holmes, live in San Francisco with their son, Julian, age 10, and daughter Ariana, age 5. Their family includes Kate’s daughter Emily, age 25.

Jennifer Levi, Esq. is the Director of the Transgender Rights Project at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in Boston, Massachusetts. Jennifer has dedicated her career to fighting for the rights of women, children, the poor, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered clients. Most recently, Jennifer was an Associate Professor of Law at Western New England College School of Law. Prior to that, she was a visiting professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law in Chicago. She has worked as an associate attorney for two Chicago law firms, and clerked in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston. Professor Levi received her A.B. from Wellesley College and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Larry Levine is a professor of law at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California. A frequent panelist, lecturer, and speaker on legal issues involving sexual orientation, he is a member of the prestigious American Law Institute. Larry has served on the State Bar Committee on Sexual Orientation Discrimination as well as the board of directors of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel of Northern California and Sacramento Lawyers for the Equality of Gays and Lesbians. He is the immediate past chair of the Law School Admission Council’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues Subcommittee. Larry graduated from UC Hastings College of the Law and was an associate with Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco for two years before joining the Pacific McGeorge in 1985. He is the author or co-author of several books on torts, a subject he teaches along with courses on Sexual Orientation and the Law, and Bioethics and the Law.

Victoria Neilson is the Legal Director of Immigration Equality. She runs Immigration Equality's pro bono asylum project and provides technical assistance and mentoring to other attorneys on LGBT and HIV immigration issues. Ms. Neilson received her law degree from the City University School of Law and her bachelor's degree from Harvard University. Ms. Neilson is co-chair of the New York City Bar Association's Committee on AIDS and an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She is the former Litigation Director at the HIV Law Project in New York.

Abby Rubenfeld has a general law practice in Nashville with an emphasis on family law, sexual orientation and AIDS-related issues, and currently serves on the board of directors of the ACLU of Tennessee. She served on the board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign, a national civil rights organization and the largest lesbian and gay political organization in the world, for seven years. She also served for more than five years as Legal Director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., a national civil rights organization that conducts test case litigation across the country on behalf of lesbian and gay rights and AIDS issues. She is a past recipient of the Bill of Rights Award from the ACLU of Tennessee, and the Dan Bradley Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association, which recognized her outstanding efforts on behalf of equality under the law. Ms. Rubenfeld received a J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 1979. She received an A.B. with honors from Princeton University, and while there, lettered in basketball and crew and was the first woman elected as a class president in more than 225 years of Princeton history. She has two daughters, ages seventeen and thirteen years old, as well as a partner, Helia Rethmann, and step-daughter, aged twelve. Ms. Rubenfeld is a professor at Vanderbilt Law School, teaching Sexual Orientation and the Law.

Kathi Westcott has been with SLDN since 1999. As Deputy Director for Law, Ms. Westcott is responsible for coordinating SLDN's legal service and litigation programs which includes serving as the primary attorney for SLDN's legal service clients, managing all requests for legal assistance, and identifying and reporting on trends in the application of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue, Don't Harass" in the various services. Ms. Westcott is also responsible for directing SLDN's involvement in challenging the constitutionality of the United States military's sodomy statute in light of the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, and is a member of the litigation team challenging the constitutionality of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in Cook v. Rumsfeld. In 1999, Ms. Westcott spearheaded SLDN's investigation into the murder of a soldier at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and assisted in bringing the soldiers responsible to justice. Ms. Westcott regularly contributes to SLDN's policy work and speaks publicly about SLDN, the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue, Don't Harass" law, current litigation, and Fort Campbell murder. Before joining SLDN's team, Westcott honed her social justice and legal rights expertise with several prominent and nationally recognized civil rights organizations including the ACLU National Prison Project and People for the American Way, where she served as a Senior Legislative Representative. In the two years prior to joining SLDN, Westcott assisted the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia in the oversight of a large class action sexual harassment case. A licensed attorney in the state of New York and the District of Columbia, Westcott received her Bachelors with Honors from the Rochester Institute of Technology and her Juris Doctorate from the University at Buffalo, School of Law.

Bridget Wilson has been privileged to share the struggle of hundreds of LGBT service members and veterans for more than three decades. She is a shareholder in Rosenstein, Wilson & Dean, P.L.C. She is a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserve and currently serves with the California State Military Reserve as a judge advocate.

Mia Frances Yamamoto was born "Michael" while her family was interned at the Poston Relocation Camp in Arizona during World War II. It was her earliest experience with race-based discrimination and the vital importance of civil rights and liberties, something that has inspired her career and life's work. Ms. Yamamoto volunteered for the US Army, 4th Infantry Division, and service in Vietnam where she received the Army Commendation Medal and Vietnam Campaign medal, among other commendations. Ms. Yamamoto received her Juris Doctorate from the University of California Los Angeles School fo Law, and she co-founded the Asian Pacific Islander Law Student Association, one the earliest such organizations in the country. After law school, Ms. Yamamoto worked at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles for three years before becoming a Deputy Los Angeles County Public Defender, and later a California State Public Defender. She has been in private practice as a criminal defense lawyer since 1984.