City of Los Angeles Honors Monica Valencia's Community Legal Work in Boyle Heights During Pride Month

June 6, 2025

As the Attorney Manager for the Los Angeles LGBT Center, Monica Valencia, has taken her Rebellious Lawyering training and legal approach to the streets of Boyle Heights.

On June 6, 2025, Los Angeles Councilmember, Ysabel Jurado, of CD14, honored Monica's work with the Legal Service Department of the Los Angeles LGBT Center during a citywide Pride Month ceremony and celebration that including a community breakfast, ribbon cutting and public acknowledgements.

As a queer, Latina lawyer, Monica's work was lauded for her creativity, boldness and intrepid vision as well as her ability to foresee the ramifications of a Trump regime looming. Through courageous Know Your Rights presentations and workshops, pro bono legal clinics for the immigrant community and local trainings and teachings, Monica continues to be a groundbreaker and dubbed, "the lawyer of the people."

https://www.instagram.com/cd14losangeles/p/DLi8QDNPyAC/

Full Speech:

On behalf of our Legal Services Department, a very humble thank you to Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, Councilmember Traci Park, the Los Angeles Civil Rights Department and the City of Los Angeles for this incredible honor. It’s especially meaningful for me and our team to be recognized during Pride Month, as we celebrate not just who we are — but what we can build together.

None of our community work is possible without the many individuals that help to uplift what we do on the ground as the first line of defense in pro se work. So, to Sarah Zambrano, Cain Andrade, Norma Sanchez, Myrion Knight, Ash Rojo and her team, Jo Cerda, Erika Arevalos, and Cruz, I give you my deepest gratitude and love. To our leadership, Roger Coggan [...] Lisa Phillips, thank you for the freedom to spearhead powerful projects on the ground with our communities and most of all, for listening.

At the Center’s Legal Services department, we believe that legal advocacy is about more than documents and courtrooms. It’s about building collective power with our community, standing alongside 2SLGBTQ+ people as they navigate their safety and identities, detrimental immigration systems, systemic discrimination, housing insecurity and as they navigate protecting their families.

Every day, our team — made up of fierce, compassionate attorneys, rebellious advocates, and pro bono volunteers and students — help our community members access justice, safety, and dignity. Whether it’s defending asylum seekers fleeing persecution, helping our trans and non-binary siblings legally affirm their names and identities, finding deliberate safety for survivors or ensuring queer elders and queer youth are not alone, our work is driven by the belief that building an intentional community IS our collective power.

Pride has always been about resistance and solidarity. It was born from collective action in the face of injustice. Through our holistic legal services – we do the quiet work behind closed doors that may not always make headlines, but I can assure you…….that every name change, every asylum victory, every legal clinic and KYR presentation, and every protection order matters. It’s in those quiet victories that we build a stronger, safer, prouder Los Angeles.

And today, as threats to our rights persist, we remain committed to building a more just, and inclusive city for ALL Angelenos — one where 2SLGBTQ+ people not only survive but thrive.

Thank you for seeing us, for celebrating our work, and for standing with us in community.

Happy Pride.