About Sam

Sam Ames (they/he) is a legal and policy strategist with 15 years of leadership experience in the LGBTQI+ movement.

Before launching Threshold Strategies, Sam served in the Biden-Harris Administration as Chief of Staff in the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights and Senior Advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration.

Sam has spent their advocacy career working on behalf of a broad range of organizations focused on the intersections between mental health and civil rights, including as Director of Advocacy & Government Affairs for the Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQI+ youth. Before coming to Washington, DC, they served as Interim Executive Director for both Trans Lifeline, a suicide hotline and community care organization providing direct emotional and financial support to transgender people in crisis, and Our Family Coalition, an organization working to advance equity for the full and expanding spectrum of LGBTQI+ families and children. Sam began their legal career as a staff attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, working on impact litigation cases involving marriage equality, employment discrimination, and family law, and in 2013 founded the Born Perfect Campaign, a national effort to end anti-LGBTQI+ conversion therapy.

In 2016, Sam took a brief hiatus from law and policy to earn a graduate degree in religion, ethics, and politics with a focus on religious trauma, and spent a year in a hospital chaplain residency at UCSF Medical Center and Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital.

Sam received their B.A. from the University of California Santa Cruz; their J.D. from George Washington University Law School; and their Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University. They are a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar and the State Bar of California. They have appeared in outlets including the New York Times, Newsweek, and MSNBC, and authored pieces for The Advocate, Refinery29, UUWorld, and – their personal favorite – Teen Vogue.

In their abundant spare time, Sam is a theatre lover, a shark enthusiast, and a five-time AIDS LifeCycle rider (You can even donate to their 2025 ride). They have also authored several children’s books on the places where science, history, and social justice intersect.