Shayna Medley (she/they) is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF), where they represent transgender and nonbinary people in civil rights lawsuits around the country regarding conditions in prisons and jails, access to health care, and access to accurate identification documents.  

Shayna speaks and publishes frequently on sex discrimination law, including the intersections of transgender and reproductive rights. Her law review article, [Mis]interpreting Title IX: How Opponents of Transgender Equality Are Twisting the Meaning of Sex Discrimination in School Sports, appeared in the NYU Review of Law and Social Change. In 2022 Shayna was named one of the 40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40 by the National LGBTQ Bar Association.  

Prior to TLDEF, Shayna was a litigation fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights, where they worked on federal litigation defending abortion rights, including as counsel on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case at the Supreme Court. They previously worked as a Skadden Fellow at the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project enforcing educational rights for transgender youth in schools and served as a law clerk in the Southern District of Ohio. Prior to joining Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law as an Adjunct Professor, Shayna taught Legal Research & Writing at Harvard Law School. 

Shayna is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Brandeis University.