Building a Trans-Inclusive Workplace with Ames Simmons

Legal Management Talk

This episode discusses how legal organizations can create an inclusive workplace for transgender employees and potential recruits. The measures suggested in this episode by Ames Simmons (he/him) of the National Center for Transgender Equity will also foster a welcoming environment for clients and community members.
Check out resources like:

• The National Center for Transgender Equality
• ALA's Virtual Master Class: A Framework for DEI&A recording bundle
• "5 Ways to Make Your Law Firm More Inclusive for the Transgender Community" from Legal Management magazine
• A Transgender Experience: A Personal Account, an ALA webinar

Also, you can look forward to the following sessions this October at ALA's 2021 Annual Conference & Expo in Austin, Texas:

• LGBTQ 101 for Legal Administrators
• LGBTQ: Allies and Inclusivity in the Workplace
• You Belong Here: Creating an Inclusive Environment Where Everyone Belongs
• A Law Firm Built for 2021 and the Future: Examining Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging and Barriers to Implicit Bias

Speaker Bio

Ames Simmons (he/him) is a queer white trans man serving as Policy Director at National Center for Transgender Equality. He provides vision and direction for NCTE’s policy strategies and approach, including federal and state advocacy to achieve NCTE’s mission of empathy, opportunity, and justice for transgender people. His work is grounded in community-based antiracism, antiviolence and antipoverty efforts.

His previous roles include Policy Director at Equality North Carolina and Assistant General Counsel at a healthcare company assisting uninsured patients with Medicaid. Ames received his bachelor’s in political science and Spanish from Agnes Scott College, and he earned a Juris Doctor degree from Emory University Law School. Ames holds a senior lecturing fellowship at Duke University School of Law.