A single 15-minute argument in the middle of this week could change Chase Strangio’s life – and the lives of so many people like him in the United States.
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.
The high court’s ruling could have a cascading effect, not just for the families and physicians whose lives are deeply intertwined with its outcome – and who await Strangio’s appearance at the lectern with guarded hope – but also for the next chapter of civil rights law in the United 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.
The justices will decide whether Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for children and adolescents violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, a question that could allow a majority of the court to hold that laws targeting transgender people are unconstitutional and discriminatory.
A ruling along those lines would give civil rights lawyers a powerful tool for fighting anti-trans laws on bathroom access, school sports and pronouns. A ruling that allows Tennessee’s ban to stand, by contrast, could be seen as a tacit endorsement of those policies, clearing the way for states to pass still more laws aimed at trans Americans.
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.
“Every aspect of gender-affirming care that has transformed my life,” he said, “I’m keenly aware that I want to preserve the ability for other people to access that care.”
Ruling’s potential reach worries one mom
The Supreme Court could take months to hand down its decision in Skrmetti – in recent years, major rulings haven’t been announced until the end of the court’s term in June. And ultimately, Strangio concedes, so much of the case’s outcome will be out of his control.
In Tennessee, the mom of a 10-year-old trans girl who’s been caught in the legal melee over the state’s ban on gender-affirming care told CNN she’s less comfortable with surrendering to the unknowns.
“We were not excited to hear that the Supreme Court agreed to hear (the case),” said Alexis, a lifelong Tennessean whom CNN has agreed to identify by only her first name to protect her family in what she described as a climate of fear and danger around her daughter’s gender identity.
“It made me very nervous because (the ruling) would be such a final decision for everyone in this state and set a precedent for so many other states.”
Indeed, gender-affirming care has become the latest fault line in a growing American cultural rift, with Republican lawmakers who support Tennessee’s ban saying decisions about gender-affirming care should be made in adulthood.
Likewise, supporters of such bans say they’re trying to protect children, arguing kids aren’t legally allowed to have sex, get married or make other life-changing decisions – even with parental consent – and these laws extend those kind of child protections. Some cite a divisive report by the UK’s National Health Service that found there is “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of (clinical) interventions” for gender-affirming care, suggesting more research is needed.
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Meanwhile, parents of trans children and legal opponents often argue such laws, in addition to violating the civil rights of trans youth, run afoul of parents’ rights to make decisions about their child’s medical care. Major medical associations – including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics – agree gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults, and research shows the risk of suicide is high among youth who experience gender dysphoria.
That this week’s hearing comes on the heels of former President Donald Trump’s reelection following a campaign marked by anti-trans attacks, Alexis said, has made it all so much worse. And the prospect of knowing she may have to wait months for the Supreme Court’s decision to learn whether her daughter is entitled to the same constitutional protections she enjoys is tough.
So, for now – as Strangio prepares to defend those protections, often out loud at home and to the chagrin of his own preteen – Alexis told CNN she’s focused on preserving her kid’s childhood for as long as she can.
“We’ve told her that there are people in the world who don’t like it when people change their gender … but we haven’t really talked to her about the laws around it,” Alexis said. “She’s not ashamed of being trans. It’s very normal to her … we’re just trying to kind of hold on to that as long as possible.”
‘I am distinctly not a miserable person’
Strangio steps into history as his very existence as a trans man has become a lightning rod. And his public profile – both in the legal system and as a vocal advocate for trans rights – has come at a cost.
He’s frequently the subject of hate-fueled, transphobic attacks online and admits he’s been concerned at times about his family’s safety. But the attacks, Strangio told CNN, also underscore the need for his work.
“One of the things I find really powerful about being a trans person in this work is (when) I’m deposing ‘experts’ whose entire theory of transness is that it makes people miserable, but they have to be confronted with me,” he said.
“I am distinctly not a miserable person, and I do not approach this work from a place of being downtrodden.”
Instead, he’s dedicated his career to advocating for the fullness of what it means to be transgender and expanding understanding, equality and access for the next generation.
Since joining the ACLU, Strangio has been a central part of legal teams that have secured major victories for LGBTQ Americans before the Supreme Court, including the right to marriage equality and a 2020 ruling that held LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
With hindsight, Strangio’s career can appear like it’s been hurtling toward this week’s Supreme Court appearance. But he said he doesn’t feel that way.
“As a younger person struggling with my own queer and transness, it was a hard place to imagine myself,” he said. “It’s taken me time to find my way.”
James Esseks still remembers the moment he decided to hire Strangio as a staff lawyer at the ACLU.
It was the summer of 2012, and Strangio was just two years out of law school. In the interview, Esseks offered his favorite sink-or-swim prompt: Tell me about a time you saw a problem and you did something to address it.
Without missing a beat, Esseks recalled, Strangio explained that trans people – especially immigrants – are often denied bail because they don’t have the family or social connections to vouch for their return to court.
So, Strangio partnered with the late Lorena Borjas, a Latina trans and immigrant rights activist in New York City, to start the Lorena Borjas Community Fund, which provides financial assistance so LGBTQ immigrants can post bail and cover legal expenses.
Esseks was blown away by Strangio’s answer, he told CNN, and his ability to marry empathy with action.
“It’s one thing to have an idea; it’s another thing to make it happen,” Esseks said. “I was like, ‘OK, I need people on the team that can make stuff happen.’”
Esseks and Strangio are now co-directors of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV project, with Strangio among the architects of the organization’s legal strategy to challenge anti-trans bills across the country.
Esseks often gets asked, he said, whether the ACLU tapped Strangio to present its case before the Supreme Court because he’s trans. He scoffs at the suggestion.
“Chase has more experience litigating this question of the constitutionality of bans on health care for trans adolescents than any other legal advocate in the country,” he said.
“Chase is there because he’s an incredible advocate, incredibly smart, and someone who is the most experienced lawyer on this issue … and in addition to that, he’s a trans guy.”
After briefly meeting Strangio last year in Tennessee, Alexis said she’s hopeful his experience arguing these types of cases proves invaluable Wednesday.
But she has less faith in the American legal system.
‘Devastating for patients and families’
To that end, Alexis has made contingency plans. Her family recently traveled to California to consult with a doctor about starting her daughter on puberty blockers.
Her child has asked, “Why do we have to go there instead of to my doctor?” Alexis recalled, referring to their pediatrician in Tennessee. “I just say, ‘If you tell me you need this kind of health care, we’re going to find the best in the world. We’re going to take you to the best doctors that we can find to help.’”
Depending on the Skrmetti ruling, Alexis said, her family may leave Tennessee for a state where the law doesn’t criminalize gender-affirming care. She’d try to make it all seem like an adventure for her girl, she said, because explaining Tennessee had outlawed her health care because she’s trans would feel like too heavy a burden for a 10-year-old.
The Supreme Court ruling also could be life-altering for physicians like Dr. Izzy Lowell, whose telehealth practice, QueerMed, provides hormone therapy and other services for transgender and nonbinary people. Early this year, the practice refused the Texas attorney general’s request for medical records of Texas minors who’d received its care.
Especially since Trump’s reelection, Lowell said her consultations with trans patients and their families have often devolved into a series of existential questions: What am I going to do? How am I going to survive the next four years in this country?
“Today, I have someone traveling 800 miles from Florida to a state without a ban – and that’s just for a 15-minute visit,” she told CNN last week. “It’s absolutely devastating for patients and families, and it’s just so misguided.”
Like many physicians, Lowell said she hesitates to promise a successful outcome in Skrmetti. But she will be keeping tabs on Strangio’s 15 minutes this Wednesday.
‘Part of our history’
The halls of the Supreme Court are as majestic as they are imposing – from the soaring marble columns that bolster its façade to the heavy velvet drapes that encircle the justices’ chambers. The court is austere, it’s imperial, and it’s not a place Strangio said he ever imagined he would be.
Although he would never admit it himself, Strangio is following in the footsteps of civil rights attorneys like Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Thurgood Marshall, who stood before the court and compelled justices to make good on a promise inherent in the Constitution for people like themselves: That all shall be equal before the law.
The Supreme Court – like many of America’s hallowed institutions – was “built at a time and for a purpose that was structurally designed to dehumanize and exclude people,” Strangio said.
Civil rights in this country have been hard-won thanks in part to lawyers who fervently believed in the promise of America. That promise, Strangio said, is truly what’s at stake when he walks into the courtroom at 1 First St NE later this week.
“I think about all of the arguments that have that have been held in the Supreme Court over just the basic dignity of people. That is part of our history – this is part of that history,” he said.
“The resistance is partly just continuing to expand the opportunities for people to step inside these buildings, to have their voices be a part of the conversations and to have them be speakers and not just spoken about.”
If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 800-273-8255. You can also reach a crisis counselor by messaging the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
CNN’s Devan Cole contributed to this report.