report from The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.Additionally, no openly transgender or nonbinary judge has ever been nominated, let alone confirmed, to the federal bench. An openly LGBTQ person has never served on nine of the 13 federal circuit courts, or on 77 of the country’s 94 federal district courts.An openly LGBTQ person has also never served as a lifetime district court judge in 39 states — or within the borders of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction extends to the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.“Having more judges, including openly LGBTQ judges, who come from all of our communities helps to build more trust in the judiciary and brings vitally important perspectives into our justice system,” Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement.“As LGBTQ rights are being subject to litigation across the country, it is increasingly clear that we need judges at all levels of the judiciary who understand what’s at stake.
.. It’s important that we continue to push for the selection and appointment of more openly LGBTQ judges who understand the real consequences that their and their colleagues’ decisions will carry as they rule on issues that impact the lives of all people.”Lambda Legal noted in a press release that the Biden administration has also nominated more Black women to appellate courts than all previous administrations combined, as well as appointing Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the U.S.
Supreme Court. The group praised Costello’s confirmation as a “significant milestone” and a sign of Biden’s commitment to diversifying the federal judiciary.
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