Patterson Belknap achieved a notable victory for Naples Pride in a First Amendment lawsuit challenging the City of Naples’ restrictions on a drag performance scheduled as part of Naples Pride’s 2025 Pridefest. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida granted the firm’s motion for a preliminary injunction, finding that the City’s indoors-only and adults-only restrictions on the family-friendly event violated the First Amendment by burdening the protected speech of Naples Pride, and allowed the Pride celebration to continue as planned.

Partnering with the ACLU, Patterson Belknap represented Jesse Hammons, a transgender man who sued the University of Maryland Medical Center for denying him surgery based on an unconstitutional and discriminatory application of religious doctrine. Mr. Hammons’ medically necessary hysterectomy was cancelled because hospital administrators believed it would violate Catholic religious teachings. After Mr. Hammons sued the hospital for violations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the nondiscrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act, the District Court of Maryland awarded him summary judgment, holding that the hospital's refusal of the procedure was discriminatory.

Patterson Belknap filed an amicus brief in opposition to an Idaho statute that sought to ban all transgender students from participating on female sports teams and requiring those whose sex was challenged to undergo invasive examinations. The Ninth Circuit upheld a federal district court’s preliminary ruling blocking the statute, directly quoting our brief in its discussion of intersex variations and their prevalence in the population.