National LGBTQ Task Force announces Policy Director
We welcome Liz Seaton to one of our community’s most vital freedom fighter organizations.
The National LGBTQ Task Force has announced the hiring of Liz Seaton as Policy Director, part of the Advocacy and Action department. The National LGBTQ Task Force advances full freedom, justice, and equity for LGBTQ people.
Seaton is a genderqueer attorney-activist who will work with the larger Task Force team to fight for equality and justice at the White House, in federal agencies, on Capitol Hill, with state legislatures and governments and wherever else the work takes the Task Force.
Most recently, Seaton served as the D.C. Department on Disability Services’ Legislative and Policy Analyst, driving the agency’s work to win a long-awaited civil rights restoration law for diverse Washingtonians with disabilities.
Prior to that role, Seaton worked on Lambda Legal’s and the American Constitution Society’s (ACS) publication “Diversity Counts: Why States Should Measure the Diversity of Their Judges and How They Can Do It.”
At the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Seaton took on administrative intersectional cases, advocated federally for transgender inclusion in the Matthew Shepard and James R. Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA), helped secure Maryland’s marriage equality and transgender civil rights law victories, and supervised the Elder, Immigration, Sports and Youth Projects.
“I could not be more excited to welcome Liz Seaton to the Task Force,” said Meghan Maury, Esq. Director of Special Projects. “Our work has had a deep impact on structural inequity, including in the criminal legal system, in the homelessness continuum of care, in the medical industrial complex, and on the foundations of our democracy. Liz’s diverse experience will inform and advance all of our work. Liz’s commitment to the Task Force’s values and the needs of our community will further that legacy of impact as incoming Task Force Executive Director Kierra Johnson sets a next course for the organization,” concluded Maury.
“I joined the Task Force team to focus on restoring our democracy and bettering the daily lives of diverse LGBTQ+ people,” said Seaton. “We will fight for racial, gender, economic and social justice through policy initiative leadership and collaborations as we advocate on issues, legislation and appointments with the incoming Biden-Harris Administration and a new Congress.”
Liz Seaton
Additionally, Seaton served for six years at the Human Rights Campaign, the final year as General Counsel/Legal Director, and co-authored the congressional resource “Transgender Americans: A Handbook for Understanding.” They also transformed Maryland’s Free State Justice into a professionally-staffed organization, tripling the budget in one year. Seaton is a Founding Board Member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute. Liz holds a J.D. and M.A. in Public Policy/Women’s Studies.
Over the years, Seaton has been part of the Task Force family, from regularly serving as a workshop panelist at the Task Force’s Creating Change Conference to working with the Task Force on many policy battles. One semester during graduate school, Seaton served as a National LGBTQ Task Force intern.
For more information go to https://www.thetaskforce.org
