ACLU Attorney Will Be First Openly Transgender Advocate to Argue Before Supreme Court

Chase Strangio, the co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, will appear before the high court on December 4.

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ACLU Attorney Chase Strangio (Rob Kim/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

By Devan Cole, CNN

Washington (CNN) — An attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union is set to be the first openly transgender person to argue before the Supreme Court this December when the justices hear a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Chase Strangio, the co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, will appear before the high court on December 4 to argue on behalf of three trans minors in Tennessee, their parents and a doctor in the state who are challenging the ban.

The court on Monday agreed to let the ACLU share time during oral arguments with the Biden administration, which is also asking the justices to declare the state law unconstitutional.

Strangio will make his historic appearance before the solidly conservative court as trans Americans continue to be a key target for Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, who has frequently attacked the community during his reelection bid.

The community also has faced political setbacks in recent years as states passed a flurry of laws, including health care bans like the one at issue in the case and measures that prohibit trans students from participating on sports teams that are consistent with their gender identity.

“Chase Strangio is our nation’s leading legal expert on the rights of transgender people, bar none,” said Cecillia Wang, the ACLU’s legal director. “He brings to the lectern not only brilliant constitutional lawyering, but also the tenacity and heart of a civil rights champion. Our clients couldn’t have a better advocate in this case.”

A longtime attorney with the ACLU, Strangio has worked on a number of consequential LGBTQ+ rights cases, including one that led the Supreme Court in 2015 to recognize the right to same-sex marriage and another that resulted in the justices deciding in 2020 that federal law protects gay, lesbian and transgender workers.

Tennessee’s law, enacted last year, bans hormone therapy and puberty blockers for minors and imposes civil penalties for doctors who violate the prohibitions. It says that medical providers cannot perform procedures that “enable a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or “treat purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.”

Republican lawmakers who support the ban say decisions about care should be made after an individual becomes an adult. But opponents argue that in addition to violating the civil rights of trans youth, laws like Tennessee’s also run afoul of parents’ rights to make decisions about their child’s medical care.