Chinyere Ezie

Chinyere Ezie has deep family and personal ties to Buffalo, New York, and has spent much of her adult professional life in New York City. She is a queer woman of Nigerian and African American heritage. Ezie studied sociology and international relations at Yale University before earning her J.D. from Columbia Law School. After working in private practice and at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she joined the Southern Poverty Law Center's LGBT Rights Project, where she represented LGBTQI clients and served as lead counsel for transgender activist Ashley Diamond in landmark litigation challenging the treatment of transgender prisoners in Georgia.

Ezie later joined the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she serves as a Senior Staff Attorney focused on racial justice, gender justice, LGBTQI rights, and governmental abuses of power. Her work combines civil rights litigation, advocacy, scholarship, and public speaking. She originated the #BoycottPrada campaign, which challenged Prada over imagery criticized as resembling blackface and led to a settlement requiring racial equity measures. Her scholarship has addressed transgender and intersex rights, transgender incarceration, and the political power of Black women. She has also served in leadership roles with organizations including the Transgender Law Center and Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights.