Bloomberg
The day after Donald Trump’s election victory, ACLU transgender justice advocate Chase Strangio promised his 98,000 Instagram followers he’ll “fight like hell.”
Strangio has become the face of the fight for transgender rights, participating in some of the biggest legal battles against Republican policies targeting LGBTQ+ people. Next month, he’ll make history as the first openly transgender person to argue before the US Supreme Court in a case challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
Trump’s re-election will make what was already an uphill battle before a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority even tougher. With a decision unlikely before Inauguration Day, Trump could try to wipe out the case by reversing the Biden administration’s position.
Strangio, 42, said he’s focused on helping the court see this case centers on people who’ve thought very hard about when and whether to pursue this path for themselves or their children.
“Taking it away is going to cause significant harm,” he said in an interview.
High Stakes
Though Strangio told Tennessee lawmakers while testifying against the measure in 2023 that gender-affirming care saved his life, he said it’s being a parent that makes him feel most connected to his clients in the case.
“When your child is suffering it is, it’s excruciating,” he said.
Strangio, who is the parent of a 12-year-old, is representing a Tennessee doctor and three transgender minors, who with their parents, argue puberty delaying medication and hormone therapy helps young people with gender dysphoria live as themselves and thrive. Gender dysphoria is a medical diagnosis for the psychological distress that stems from the conflict between a person’s gender identity and the sex they were identified as having at birth.
These parents struggled for years and considered how best to help their children who were suffering, “and then the government of Tennessee came in and said ‘No, we are going to displace your decision-making as parents and decide what is best for the child you love and care for more than anyone in the world,’” he said.
Tennessee’s Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti argues the state is protecting children from medical interventions that carry lifelong consequences and maintains its law doesn’t discriminate against minors based on their sex or transgender status.
With categorical bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth in 24 states, the court’s decision could decide the constitutionality of laws across the country and any congressional attempt to enact a federal ban with Republicans set to control the White House and both houses of Congress come January.
“The stakes are incredibly high,” said James Esseks, who co-directs the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project with Strangio.
Technically, Strangio will be arguing in support of the Biden administration in a divided argument on Dec. 4. That’s because the Supreme Court only agreed to hear the government’s appeal not the appeal from Strangio’s clients. Though they are still considered private parties in the case, this procedural quirk could complicate matters when Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
“There are a couple factors that are not ideal for the outcome with regard to the president changing,” said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute, a research organization at UCLA School of Law focused on law and policies that impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and intersex people.
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