James D. Esseks, Esq.

James D. Esseks is Co-Director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer & HIV Project. Through litigation, legislative lobbying, policy advocacy, organizing, and public education, the ACLU seeks to ensure equality and justice for LGBTQ people and people living with HIV.

James has been counsel in several cases about LGBTQ equality before the U.S. Supreme Court, including West Virginia v. B.P.J., about whether states can ban trans girls and women from women’s sports teams; U.S. v. Skrmetti, about whether states can ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender adolescents; in Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., in which the Supreme Court ruled that anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace is unlawful; in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that won the freedom to marry nationwide; in United States v. Windsor, which struck down the core of the federal Defense of Marriage Act; and in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, about whether a business open to the public can turn away LGBTQ customers based on its religious or artistic objections. He has also been counsel in successful challenges to bans on adoption and foster parenting by lesbians and gay men in Arkansas, Florida, and Missouri.

James and the ACLU have also worked extensively to fight anti-LGBTQ and specifically anti-transgender bills in state legislatures and to fight the use of religion to justify discrimination against LGBTQ people.