Jillian T. Weiss

JILLIAN WEISS is a lawyer in private practice, focusing on gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination. Dr. Weiss was previously Executive Director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, a Professor of Law & Society at Ramapo College, and in private law practice. She received her B.A. from Yeshiva University in 1983, her J.D. from Seton Hall University in 1986, and her Ph.D. (Law & Society) from Northeastern University in 2004.

Dr. Weiss co-litigated the first transgender employment rights cases with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice. She has published several law review articles on transgender legal issues, was the first transgender member of the Board of Directors of Lambda Legal, and has been a member of the Committee on Labor & Employment for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. She was the longtime Chair of the annual Transgender Law Symposium, and founding Executive Director of the National Transgender Bar Association.

Dr. Weiss has conducted research involving hundreds of companies and public agencies that have adopted "gender identity" policies. She publishes a popular blog on the subject of Transgender Workplace Law & Diversity, and has published several articles on the subject of gender identity, which may be found at her Google Scholar website. She has consulted with major corporations, public agencies and educational institutions regarding gender identity policies, including Harvard University, Boeing and New York City. She has received several awards for her advocacy for the LGBTQ community, including the New York State LGBT Bar Association’s Community Vision Award and the Arthur Leonard Award for Service from the LGBT Rights Committee of the New York City Bar Association. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law 360, the Society for Human Resource Management, Workforce Management Magazine, and HR Executive Magazine.

Dr. Weiss is admitted to practice law in New York and New Jersey, as well as the United States Courts of Appeal for the Federal Circuit, Second Circuit, Fifth Circuit and Tenth Circuit, and the Southern, Eastern, Western and Northern Districts of New York, the District of New Jersey, the District of Colorado, and the Northern District of Illinois. She co-authored a law school casebook with Prof. David Cruz of USC Gould Law School, Gender Identity and the Law (2021).