Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Julian Castronovo, Supervising Attorney of LGBTQ HIV Unit at Brooklyn Legal Services
2:02:05
ยท
148 sec
Julian Castronovo, a supervising attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services, testifies about the challenges faced by transgender and non-binary New Yorkers in accessing legal services and enforcing their rights. They emphasize the need for better enforcement mechanisms and increased funding for legal representation and the NYC Commission on Human Rights.
- Brooklyn Legal Services' LGBTQ HIV unit provides free holistic civil legal representation to hundreds of low-income transgender and non-binary New Yorkers annually.
- Many organizations are complying with transphobic executive orders, despite potential liability under city and state human rights laws.
- The NYC Commission on Human Rights faces significant delays in processing discrimination cases, with one trans discrimination case pending since 2020.
Julian Castronovo
2:02:05
Hi, thank you.
2:02:06
Good morning.
2:02:07
My name is Julian Cashionovo.
2:02:09
I use theythem pronouns and I'm the supervising attorney of the LGBTQ HIV unit at Brooklyn Legal Services.
2:02:15
Our small unit of sublingual workers provides free holistic civil legal representation to hundreds of low income transgender and non binary New Yorkers a year.
2:02:24
Our unit is a generalist practice, meaning we often represent clients in several different civil legal proceedings at once.
2:02:30
We file discrimination cases, defend against evictions, sue for repairs, appeal wrongful denials of gender affirming care and public benefits, and we help clients obtain reasonable accommodations, name changes, and affirming identity documents.
2:02:43
While our model is incredibly effective, we are unfortunately one of only a few legal services providers in the city that provide holistic direct civil legal services to trans folks.
2:02:52
Our unit has been overwhelmed with requests from trans folks for know your rights information and legal services.
2:02:58
We are watching many organizations within the city comply in advance with transphobic and hateful executive orders even when their compliance makes them liable for discrimination under the city and state human rights laws.
2:03:08
We are finding that even when we counsel our clients on their rights and they then assert those rights, they often are coming back to us letting us know that the entities didn't care about their assertion of their rights, leaving us to have to file discrimination cases on their behalf.
2:03:23
Thus, it is no longer enough to have rights, know them, and assert them.
2:03:27
People must be given the enforcement mechanisms to force these institutions to respect their rights.
2:03:32
Unfortunately, enforcing rights is difficult.
2:03:34
It can be next to impossible to bring a discrimination case without an attorney as the process is complicated and oftentimes especially traumatic when you're navigating it on your own.
2:03:43
At the same time access to an attorney, especially attorneys who have specialized knowledge on trans discrimination is limited as we are one of the few organizations funded to bring these types of cases.
2:03:54
Funding that under this administration is at grave risk.
2:03:57
Thus, as the city council continues to pass needed legislation enshrining trans people's rights to self determination, we urge you to also focus on pathways for people to enforce these rights.
2:04:07
One such pathway is the Commission on Human Rights.
2:04:09
We similarly have found that we have had extremely long delays.
2:04:12
We have one case that has been pending.
2:04:14
It's a trans discrimination case since 2020.
2:04:17
Multiple attorneys have been assigned to the matter.
2:04:19
It cannot be found despite all of our advocacy.
2:04:23
So we hope that the City Council will also support a funding and increase resources to the City Commission on Human Rights that allows for more humane processing of these oftentimes really traumatic complaints.