Washington — When the Supreme Court weighs in on the controversial issue of transgender rights this week, the justices will hear from lawyers with deep knowledge.
Chase Strangio, an openly transgender person before the U.S. Supreme Court, represents families who say their children's futures are uncertain because of Tennessee's ban on medical care for transgender minors. He is the first lawyer to publicly say so.
Discussion of the case comes amid a growing backlash against transgender rights, including a presidential campaign in which Republican Donald Trump faced fierce opposition.
Mr. Strangio will bring months of intense legal preparation and hard-won lessons from his own experience.
“I'm able to do my job because of the medical care that changed my life and frankly saved my life,” he said. “I am a testament to the fact that we all live within each other.”
Strangio grew up in a Boston suburb and came out as transgender while attending law school. Now 42, he is an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, and his legal career includes representing former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in challenging a ban on transgender military service members. He has a history of working to win LGBTQ worker discrimination cases at the Supreme Court. He is the son of a Trump-supporting father, the father of a 12-year-old, and has a close relationship with his older brother, a veteran.
He is also a vocal advocate for a series of U.S. states banning gender-affirming medical care for minors. The law is part of a wave of restrictions on school sports participation and restroom use across the country. After the first openly transgender person was elected to Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) declared support for restricting bathroom access to the gender assigned at birth. .
Meanwhile, Tennessee argues before the Supreme Court that treatments such as puberty blockers and hormones carry risks for young people and that the state's law protects young people from making premature treatment decisions. It's planned.
“Tennessee, like many other states, will continue to work until minors are able to fully understand the lifelong effects, or until science develops and Tennessee takes a different view of its effectiveness.” , prevented minors from receiving these treatments,” state attorneys wrote. In court filings.
Advocating for Tennessee is state Attorney General Matt Rice. In 2019, he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, who dissented from Strangio's transgender worker discrimination case during the same period. The state attorney general's office did not make Rice available for an interview ahead of the argument, but his background includes stints as a minor league baseball player with the Tampa Bay Rays before earning a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. That includes playing for several years. .
The Biden administration supports the challenge to Tennessee's law, but the federal government's position is expected to change after Trump takes office in January. Still, Strangio said he will continue to advocate for transgender youth to have access to medical care that was not available to them when they were younger.
“Many of us think of our childhood and adolescence as simply lost years outside of our core,” he says. Major medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, oppose the ban and support such treatments, saying they are safe when administered properly. Strangio also pointed out that many medical procedures for young people, such as gastric bypass surgery for weight loss, involve some degree of risk, so it makes sense to inform the family and let them make the decision.
“Forcing young people to deny the care that their doctors, parents, and themselves agree they need will do more harm than good,” he said.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision by summer.
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Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.
