By Cassidy Stoneback
This month the LGBTQ+ Bar is proud to promote the Kentucky Bar Association’s LGBT Law Section in our affiliate spotlight blog series!
In 2015, Keith Elston, Bruce Kleinschmidt, and other members of the Kentucky Bar Association, including members of the Kentucky Supreme Court, met to discuss starting an LGBT group within the organization. The organizers set the mission of the section as working to build a community for LGBTQ+ lawyers in Kentucky and advance the rights of queer people across the state. By June of that year, the section had been approved and their work began.
Elston, the current chair of the LGBT Law Section, reports that although the section is open to all members of the Kentucky Bar Association who identify as LGBTQ+ or allies, the leaders have struggled to get the section off the ground and recruit members. In order to grow the community, the section regularly asks current members to invite others to join, stressing the importance of personal connections within the section. As such a small and close-knit group, much of the section’s work is dedicated toward supporting and building community. Elston knows that other Bar affiliate groups often face similar challenges in starting and growing these groups, and encourages leaders to stick with it and be creative in developing ways to demonstrate inclusion, especially for allies.
Despite the challenges they faced starting and growing the section, in the six years since the section was founded, the leaders have worked hard to make the group a welcoming place for everyone. Before the pandemic, the section would host events for members to meet each other, sponsor members to attend the National LGBTQ+ Bar’s Lavender Law® Conference and Career Fair, and organize CLE programs for their members. The section also conducted a survey of all members of the Kentucky Bar Association to determine what the attitudes of general members were. The section found that many members had some knowledge of LGBTQ+ issues, but either did not want to learn more or did not think it concerned them. Using this information, section leadership has worked to educate members of the Kentucky Bar on the issues the LGBTQ+ community faces.
Maintaining a strong community has become even more difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic, so the LGBT Law Section has had to put many of its plans on hold. Elston says, “I see the section right now as in a building phase. We’re trying to create an organization that is responsive to our members and makes some important contributions to the overall LGBTQ+ community in the state of Kentucky, during this challenging time of in-person hiatus.” Currently, Elston and the LGBT Law Section are working on increasing diversity within the organization. The section is working with the Kentucky Bar Association’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee to improve diversity throughout the organization as a whole, and is reaching out to groups for LGBTQ+ lawyers of color and trans and nonbinary lawyers to ensure that the group is open and welcoming.
Organizing an LGBTQ+ group in Kentucky presents some unique challenges. Elston explained that although there are some areas of the state, particularly large cities, college towns, and surprisingly some small, close-knit towns, that have made immense progress towards equality in recent years, most of the rural areas do not share these attitudes. Furthermore, the state legislature is not LGBTQ+ friendly, and the section often finds itself at odds with these politicians. While the LGBT Law Section is prohibited from directly engaging in political advocacy, it does not prevent members of the section from advocating on issues of importance. It also has been working to educate its members on issues raised by legislation like bathroom bills and bills attempting to ban gender-affirming surgery that have been appearing in states across the country.
One of Elston’s top priorities currently and for the next few years is reaching out to current law students. Since law students cannot be members of the Kentucky Bar Association, the LGBT Law Section is limited in such outreach efforts; however, Elston still believes that reaching out to the next generation of lawyers is imperative to the growth of the profession. The class of current law students is more diverse than ever and Elston believes that this is an opportunity to increase diversity within the profession by supporting these students throughout their journey into law. Elston sees his role as Chair, and the section’s role as a whole, to prepare current law students to continue the fight for equality. “In addition to supporting our current membership by providing value-added services like Prof. Arthur Leonard’s excellent monthly review, LGBT Law Notes,” he says, “I’m a big believer in reaching out and trying to include as many voices as possible. Where we need to be focusing, frankly, is on people who are just coming into the profession and giving them support, providing mentorships for them, making sure they are aware of other programs in the Bar Association that they could benefit from… It’s important that we start looking at [law students] as future colleagues and current allies and friends and to nurture them into becoming the lawyers who will take over this institution in the future years.”
The National LGBTQ+ Bar Association thanks the Kentucky Bar Association’s LGBT Law Section for continuing to fight for equality, and for supporting our next generation of lawyers!