The American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) will honor Colorado LGBTQ activist Jordan Blisk with its Stonewall Award during a virtual ceremony on Feb. 12 at 5:30 p.m. PST at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Seattle.Named after the New York City Stonewall Inn police raid and riot of June 28, 1969, which was a turning point in the gay rights movement, the award recognizes lawyers who have considerably advanced lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in the legal profession and successfully championed LGBTQ legal causes.
Blisk is the assistant director of chapters at the American Constitutional Society, a progressive legal organization, and executive director and board chair of the Colorado Name Change Project (CNCP), where he leads programs that provide transgender Coloradans with legal and financial assistance with their name and gender marker corrections through attorney-led workshops across the state.
CNCP accomplishes its goals through attorney-led workshops, microgrants to defray or wholly eliminate the cost of legal transition, individual pro bono legal assistance, nonpartisan advocacy and innovative technology implementation. Blisk is working to lay the groundwork to replicate and expand successful CNCP initiatives in neighboring states with policies on legal transition that are less accessible than Colorado’s.
After high school, Blisk served in the U.S. Air Force for four years, then received his B.A. from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Having earned both the rank of senior airman and his undergraduate degree by the age of 20, three years later, Blisk became the first openly transgender graduate of the University of Colorado Law School, where he organized the first annual CU Law Name Change Clinic.
In law school, Blisk interned at Lambda Legal, working primarily on state and federal impact litigation cases such as Zzyym v. Pompeo and utilizing the resources of Lambda to fight against discriminatory practices in blood donation by LGBTQ person and to fight for the inclusion of transathletes in youth sports.
In 2021, the National LGBT Bar Association selected him as one of the “40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40.”
“We are thrilled to honor trans activist, veteran and lawyer Jordan Blisk, who through his advocacy work inspires us all to demand and create a better world for all of us,” said Judge Benes Aldana, chair of SOGI.
