Interview with Sam Ames

An interview with Sam Ames, a white transmasculine civil rights attorney, anti-conversion therapy activist, and theologian based in Oakland, California. At the time of this interview, he was the interim executive director of Our Family Coalition - an organization that advocates for and serves LGBTQ+ youth and families in the San Francisco Bay Area. Previously, he worked as interim executive director of Trans Lifeline, as the founder of the National Center for Lesbian Rights' anti-conversion therapy campaign Born Perfect, and as a chaplain at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute at UCSF Medical Center. In this oral history interview, Ames discusses his Unitarian Universalist upbringing, values, and rootedness in faith communities; his beginnings in civil disobedience and LGBTQ+ civil rights work following Proposition 8's passage in California; his career as an anti-conversion therapy advocate and director of Trans Lifeline and the importance of work directly assisting queer and trans youth; and the future of LGBTQ+ civil rights litigation in the Trump area. Specifically, he discusses the differences between legislative and litigation strategies; the intricacies of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its relationship to gender identity, sexual orientation, and sex-based protections; and the Title VII case before the Supreme Court at the time of the interview (Bostock v. Clayton County.)

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Item Information:

Identifier: s7526c770
Collection: Audio and Video Clips and Transcripts
Institution: Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection, University of Minnesota
Creator(s): Ames, Sam
Contributor(s): Beam, Myrl
Billund-Phibbs, Myra
Publisher: University of Minnesota Minneapolis Libraries
Date Created: Jan. 17, 2020
Genre: Oral Histories
Transcriptions
Subject(s): Our Family Coalition
Trans Lifeline
Unitarian Universalist Church
Places: Texas > Dallas County > Dallas
California > Alameda County > Oakland
California > Bay Area
Topic(s): Civil disobedience
Civil rights lawyers
Harm reduction
LGBTQ+ civil rights
LGBTQ+ youth
Sexual reorientation
Transgender activism
Transgender people
Transmasculine people
White transgender people
Resource Type: Moving image
Text
Language: English
Rights: Copyright undetermined
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