Celeste Fiore, Esq. is the Founder and Chair of the TRANS AFFIRMING ALLIANCE™, and also a Partner at Argentino Fiore Law & Advocacy, LLC.  

Celeste Fiore’s work as an LGBTQ educator, activist, and advocate began when they were an undergraduate student at American University in Washington, DC. Celeste led AU’s LGBTQ undergraduate organization, and was later the president of Outlaws, the LGBTQ law student group at Rutgers University School of Law in Camden, where they earned their Juris Doctorate.   

Celeste holds a number of appointed positions that allow them to advocate for LGBTQ rights on county and state-wide scales. To name a few, they serve as a Trustee of the NJSBA, they are the immediate past Chair of the LGBT Rights Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association, a member of the Section’s Legislative Committee, the Essex Vicinage’s Advisory Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, and the New Jersey Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Public Access to Court Records. Celeste also regularly presents on and writes about LGBTQ issues. They have written for numerous publications, including the American Bar Association’s Solo and Small Firms publication and most recently New Jersey Psychology’s special section on transgender issues. Their presentation credits include cultural competency trainings at a wide variety of companies, and panels at the NJSBA Mid-Year meeting and the National LGBT Bar Association’s Lavender Law Conference among many other engagements.     

As one of few out non-binary legal professionals, Celeste’s practice at Argentino Fiore Law & Advocacy, LLC specializes in family and education law, with a particular focus on the LGBTQ+ and special needs communities, while advocating for human rights and lived equality for those within marginalized populations.

Celeste was named a New Jersey Super Lawyers “Rising Star,” 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 and was recognized as one of the LGBT Bar Association’s Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40.   

Aaron Potenza is our Secretary as well as an educator and historian by training. He has taught courses on the histories of gender and sexuality at Yale University and Trinity College Hartford. He did his undergraduate work in History and Gender Studies at the University of Rhode Island and his graduate work (an M.A. and an MPhil) in American Studies at Yale University. Aaron has a background in nonprofit management and is passionate about legislative and electoral politics, public policy, and civil rights. As Director of Policy at Garden State Equality, he managed the legislative and policy agenda of the state’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. In that role he scored a number of legislative wins, including the expansion of health insurance coverage for transition-related care for transgender New Jerseyans; the mandating of statewide guidelines on transgender students from the NJ Department of Education; the mandating of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in NJ public schools; and a modernized birth and death certificate process allowing transgender and non-binary people to access accurate identity documents.

As Manager of Strategic Initiatives at NJCASA, Aaron works to increase service delivery to underserved populations, including people of color, immigrants, those with Limited English Proficiency, those who are Deaf/Hard of hearing, those with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. His work in this area includes data collection, analysis, research and reporting on the work being done by the county-based sexual violence programs around the State. He provides technical assistance and training to those agencies on best practices in demographic data collection and on increasing access to underserved communities. Aaron works with the State’s prevention coordinators who serve on the front lines of the anti-sexual violence movement doing work to change the culture and climate to stop sexual violence before it occurs. He also serves as a representative for NJCASA on various stakeholder groups, is co-lead on a project to abolish the youth offender registry in New Jersey, and works as a senior member of the policy team to secure passage of legislation to address sexual harassment and sexual violence throughout the State.

Aaron recently served as Chair of New Jersey’s Transgender Equality Task Force, the first statewide interagency transgender task force in the country. Their report, Addressing Discrimination Against Transgender New Jerseyans, was recognized by the National Conference of State Legislatures as 2020’s notable document in the category “Discrimination.” Aaron is a gay transgender man and uses male pronouns.

Robyn B. Gigl is our Treasurer and a partner at Gluck Walrath, LLP in Freehold, New Jersey. Her practice involves handling complex litigation including employment law and commercial litigation. She is admitted to practice before the state and federal courts of New Jersey, and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. She has tried cases in both state and federal courts and was one of the defense attorneys in a 21-month federal trial – the longest criminal trial in the state’s history – in which all the defendants were acquitted.

Robyn is a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Garden State Equality. Robyn is a Past Chair of the LGBT Rights Section of the Bar Association as well as a member of Diversity Committee, Women In The Profession Section and the Judicial Administration Committee. Robyn has also been appointed to the NJSBA’a Commission on Racial Equality in the Law.

In 2019, Robyn was appointed by Governor Murphy and the State Legislature as one of seventeen members of the New Jersey Transgender Equality Taskforce.

Robyn’s first novel, By Way of Sorrow, will be published by Kensington Books in March 2021. She is also the Co-author of the Chapter “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964” published in Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation in the Workplace (BNA – 2014); and articles that have appeared in the American Bar Association’s GPSolo Magazine, New Jersey Lawyer Magazine, the Diversity Committee’s Newsletter and the LGBT Rights Section’s Newsletter.

Robyn is a frequent speaker on LGBTQ issues, including being interviewed on NPR. She has presented as part of programs sponsored by the New Jersey Judicial College, EEOC, the NJ Institute for Continuing Legal Educations, the Missouri and Alaska Bar Associations, University of Virginia Law School, Rutgers Law School, Rutgers University and Kean University.

Robyn has been honored by the ACLU-NJ and the Pride Network for her work on behalf of the LGBTQ community. She is AV Preeminent® Rated by Martindale-Hubbell and has been selected since 2010 as a New Jersey Super Lawyer and has also been selected as one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in New Jersey. Robyn was recently named by the New Jersey Law Journal as one of the Top Women in the Law for 2020 and to Insider NJ’s LGBTQ Top 100 Power List.

Robyn is a graduate of Stonehill College, and Villanova University School of Law where she was a Member of the Villanova Law Review.