Simone Chriss

“Please know that we are fighting for the LGBTQ+ community in Florida!” That is Simone Chriss’ message to LGBTQ+ youth, families, and allies—particularly transgender youth.

Simone is engaged in several federal lawsuits against the State of Florida to fight for LGBTQ+ rights and humanity. She is part of a lawsuit challenging the discriminatory exclusion of coverage for gender-affirming medical care through Florida’s Medicaid Program, a lawsuit challenging the state’s new bans on gender-affirming care for minors, and a lawsuit challenging the Florida law known as “Don’t Say Gay/Trans.” Not only is she engaged in this highly important impact litigation, but she also conducts workshops and guides people through the legal name and gender marker change processes, helps people obtain accurate IDs, represents LGBTQ+ students in educational proceedings, protects students and youth from discriminatory policies, and conducts LGBTQ+ cultural competency trainings and transgender rights trainings statewide and nationally.

Simone is a force. And when you speak to her about her work, her clear-eyed and determined passion is more than evident.

She did not originally set out to do LGBTQ+ legal work. Growing up, Simone was a foster sibling to over 50 children and saw firsthand the hardship and injustices foster youth face every day. She remembers her family buying luggage for foster children who showed up at their home with their belongings in trash bags. And when the child was inevitably moved again and eventually returned to Simone’s family's home, the child’s belongings were again in a trash bag—luggage nowhere in sight. She went to law school to eventually advocate for foster children and their needs and to find a way to stop the continuous re-traumatization of children she saw far too often from the child welfare system. Holistic wraparound services and trauma-informed care were going to be her focus. And though it remains a priority for her— she serves as an attorney ad litem for dependent children with special needs and provides robust trainings for dependency staff—Simone saw other immense legal services gaps that needed to be filled by innovative and effective lawyers.

Almost simultaneously, the 2016 change in federal administration came with increased attempts by state governments to stop and roll back supports and affirmations of rights for LGBTQ+ people, with systemic attacks on trans people in particular. Simone began working at Southern Legal Counsel in 2016 after receiving her J.D. from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, and later becoming director of their Transgender Rights Initiative. Simone developed the initiative to fill a gap in access to justice by aiding the historically underserved transgender community in Florida.

One of the first unmet legal needs that Simone took on was helping her transgender clients and others throughout Florida obtain name and gender marker changes and accurate IDs. It took over a year to build a first-of-its-kind website that would help guide people through the legal name and gender marker change process. She had to call court clerks who often had incorrect or no information about the processes involved and also had to figure out the process for all 67 Florida counties, because they were all different. She sought feedback from those within the impacted community who were using the forms and the website, making sure that it was as user-friendly and comprehensive as possible. Now, thanks to Simone’s innovation and persistence, Floridians can visit floridanamechange.org for a free resource that walks them through the process. Simone calls it a sort of “Turbo Tax for name changes.” Others might call it an essential lifesaver. Simone continues to direct name and gender marker change workshops throughout Florida and also helps clients complete the process on an individual basis. While this is just a small piece of a larger puzzle, Simone understands that access to legal documents that match a person’s gender identity are absolutely essential to meaningful participation in society, given the central role that IDs play in obtaining housing, employment, public benefits, access to a safe school environment, exercising the right to vote, and more.

Across the country, there simply are not enough lawyers who take on education issues where representation of students could make a difference, such as disciplinary or special education hearings. Within the small group do, there are even fewer lawyers representing trans youth as they fight for their rights to exist in school the same way their cis classmates do. This is another massive access to justice gap that Simone is tackling, and she represents and advocates for students by making sure, for example, they can use the correct bathrooms and that teachers use gender-affirming names and pronouns.

No matter what type of law you’re practicing, you’re going to serve LGBTQ people; if you think you’re not currently serving LGBTQ+ people, that just means you’re not creating an affirming space for them to be comfortable disclosing that part of their identity to you.

For attorneys who might be thinking of taking on this work, Simone wants you to “reach out, don’t reinvent the wheel. Let’s work together, there’s so much already out there.” She notes, “Collaboration is the most important thing to be successful in this area.” This work is not for the weak of heart. It is not made easier by the fact that a lot of the litigation and advocacy Simone carries out is or has been first-of-its-kind or that, when she was first starting out, there were not a lot of mentors. “It’s so constant and relentless, you don’t feel like you can get a grasp on anything before the next wave crashes you down.”

When Simone first started doing the work in 2016, the assault on the LGBTQ+ community was getting worse, but “what we’re experiencing right now is an all-out assault on every front.” Indeed, many of the teacher support guides that Simone created over the last seven years regarding supporting LGBTQ+ students and that had been adopted by school districts are now being banned because of the “Don’t Say Gay” law. However, it should be noted that those long-standing relationships with school districts, administrators, and teachers have helped Simone blunt some of the blow as they look to her to understand the current state of the laws around trans youth, instead of panicking and rolling all their progress backward.

If you ask Simone about the value of the work she does, she will say she is glad to be in a position where she can not only take on impact litigation but do individual advocacy for hundreds of LGBTQ+ kids. The individual representation is what keeps her grounded, what pushes her forward. She gets notes and cards from the youth with messages of thanks. She keeps a stack of those cards—including graduation announcements from minor clients and their parents who share they wouldn’t have made it through grade school without her advocacy—in her desk drawer to read when she feels depleted and needs to remember who she’s fighting for and the true impact of her work.

And when you ask Simone about the youth she serves, she calls them what they are: “Unbelievably resilient.” She recognizes that the current generation of youth initially grew up during a time when LGBTQ+ rights were growing, and now that people are trying to strip those rights and more, the youth are rightfully angry and are fighting. “They know they have power.” And she is right there beside them, using her knowledge and expertise to stand with them and fight fearlessly for them. It is thanks to attorneys like Simone that there is hope for Florida, and she wants to make sure all LGBTQ+ youth know—we are fighting for you, and we will right these wrongs.

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