Lydia X. Z. Brown

Disability Justice Advocate and Attorney

Lydia X. Z. Brown is an advocate, organizer, attorney, strategist, and writer whose work focuses on interpersonal and state violence against disabled people at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, language, and nation. They are Policy Counsel for Privacy & Data at the Center for Democracy & Technology, focused on algorithmic discrimination and disability, as well as Director of Policy, Advocacy, & External Affairs at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. Lydia is also adjunct lecturer and core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies Program, and adjunct professorial lecturer in American University’s Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies. 

They serve as a commissioner on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Disability Rights, chairperson of the ABA Civil Rights & Social Justice Section’s Disability Rights Committee, board member of the Disability Rights Bar Association, and representative for the Disability Justice Committee to the National Lawyers Guild’s National Executive Committee. Lydia founded the Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color’s Interdependence, Survival, and Empowerment, and they are creating Disability Justice Wisdom Tarot. Lydia is past chairperson of the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council, and former Justice Catalyst Legal Fellow at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. Often, their most important work has no title, job description, or funding, and probably never will.