Chase Strangio Becomes First Openly Trans Lawyer to Argue Before SCOTUS

Chase Strangio, a biologically female transgender attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), became the first openly transgender lawyer to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday morning.

Strangio, who appears to have facial hair, was referred to as male in Court documents and addressed as “Mister.”

The case, United States v. Skrmetti, concerns a challenge to a Tennessee law that bans the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria for minors. The Sixth Circuit for the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the law; the Biden-Harris administration appealed and was represented Wednesday by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar. Prelogar aruged that the Court should find that the Tennessee law discriminated on the basis of sex classification and therefore should be remanded back down to the lower courts for judges to analyze the law under a standard of heightened scrutiny.

Strangio told the justices that the ACLU’s argument was no different than that of the federal government, save for the fact that the ACLU believed the entire law was invalid, even without an analysis based on heightened scrutiny.

Strangio later appeared outside the Court to tell supporters that it had been a point of pride to argue before the Court that the Constitution protects transgender Americans just like it protects all other Americans.

Supporters of the Tennessee law argue that it protects children from irreversible harm caused by puberty blockers, including infertility.

The Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to uphold the Tennessee law, based on the oral arguments.

The case is United States v. Skrmetti, Supreme Court of the United States, No. 23-477.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.