Oral arguments are here:

Prior posts on the Gender Law Blog are here:

Marc Spindelman, Trans Sex Equality Rights After Dobbs

Deborah Brake, Why State Laws Banning Transgender Athletes are Unconstitutional

Sixth Circuit Decision Upholding Ban on Gender-affirming Care for Minors is a Monumental LGBTQ-rights Case Headed to SCOTUS

Katie Eyer, Anti-Transgender Constitutional Law

Leah Litman reviews Jessica Clarke, JOTWELL, Reviewing Sex Discrimination Formalism

and 

Chase Strangio: First Known Transgender Attorney Argues Before Supreme Court

Strangio, an attorney for the ACLU, is set to make history Wednesday as the first known transgender person to argue before the US Supreme Court. And he’ll do it as part of the most high-profile dispute on the docket this session.

The case, US v. Skrmetti, challenges a Tennessee law that bans treatments, including hormone therapy and puberty blockers, for transgender minors and imposes civil penalties on doctors who violate the prohibitions. Some two dozen similar laws have been enacted in recent years in Republican-led states.***

For Strangio, the professional path that’s led to this moment – in which he’ll have 15 minutes to present his argument to the justices – cannot be unwoven from his life outside the courtroom.

“It is not lost on me that I will be standing there at the lectern at the Supreme Court in part because I was able to have access to the medical care that is the very subject of the case that we’re litigating,” he said recently.***

If the weight of so much collective anxiety and expectation is taking a toll on Strangio, it doesn’t show. Below his slightly mussed hair, the 42-year-old’s clear blue eyes were sharp and determined as he spoke with CNN last month.

Much of his stoicism, Strangio admits, comes from being remarkably good at compartmentalizing. But he doesn’t expect it to last.

“I’ll probably have a nervous breakdown on December 5,” the day after he argues before the court, he quips.

For now, he’s laser-focused on putting forward the best legal argument he can, driven by a visceral understanding of just how much is at stake.