[7] On October 1, 2024, the organization rebranded as Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) after merging with the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Early on, Keisling and NCTE led "United ENDA", a coalition of over 400 LGBTQ rights organizations lobbying for a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that had explicit protections for transgender individuals.

[14] Also among these policy victories was the modification of State Department regulations, allowing transgender citizens to change the gender marker on their passport without necessarily having undergone genital reconstruction surgery.

[17] In January 2024, NCTE announced that they would merge with the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund to form a new organization, Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE).

As a transgender man, his wide-ranging experience in the LGBTQ movement has covered field organizing, leadership development, fundraising, and media advocacy.

He previously worked with Freedom for All Americans, GLAAD, the Transgender Law Center, Gender Justice LA, and the National LGBTQ Task Force.

Most recently, he co-led the successful campaign to update New Hampshire's nondiscrimination protections to include transgender Granite Staters.

[25] He subsequently appointed her as the White House's primary LGBT liaison in 2016, making her the first openly transgender person in the role.

These include: state policy agendas; hate crimes and violence; employment non-discrimination; advocating for transgender parents and families of transgender people; health care access; access to homeless and emergency shelters; immigration reform; open military service; criminal justice reform; racial and economic justice; federal research surveys and the Census; travel security procedures and bodily privacy; voting rights; and protections for transgender students from bullying, discrimination, and accommodations exclusions.

[7] In addition to these policy programs, NCTE maintains an ID Documents Center and the Transgender Legal Services Network.

[29][30] The ID Documents Center offers a constantly updated database of federal, state, and territory-based policies regarding name and gender change procedures so that transgender individuals can more easily navigate these complex legal processes.

A significant step toward making the lesbian and gay rights movement more inclusive occurred in 2007, when NCTE and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force led a coalition of more than 425 trans and LGBT groups known as United ENDA, which demanded that Congress not pass ENDA without gender identity protections.

ENDA had been the legislative priority for lesbian and gay rights organizations since it was first introduced in 1993, but gender identity protections were not added until 2007.

ENDA was replaced in 2015 with the Equality Act, which would ban discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in not just employment, but also in public accommodations, education, housing, and credit.

NCTE is increasingly more involved in state advocacy as resources allowed, which included pushing states to make it easier for trans people to change their names and gender markers on identification documents (e.g., driver's licenses and birth certificates) and to enact policies requiring health insurance companies and systems (such as Medicaid) to cover transition-related healthcare.

In 2018, NCTE launched the "Won't Be Erased" campaign in response to a leaked White House memo that outlined a strategy to overturn protections for trans people.

[34][35][36] Past lobby days have featured guests from organizations such as the White House Office of Public Engagement, as well as prominent figures such as transgender activist and lawyer Shannon Minter from the National Center for Lesbian Rights,[37] Masen Davis from the Transgender Law Center,[38] Rep. Joe Kennedy III, and former Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

[9] NCTE's former director of policy, Harper Jean Tobin, is similarly often quoted by news media including The New York Times,[62] Reuters,[63] PBS,[64] and The Huffington Post,[65] and has published op-eds in publications such as The Guardian.