First transgender attorney to argue before the Supreme Court, challenging health care ban for minors
The Supreme Court will be hearing from an experienced attorney when it tackles the controversial issue of transgenders rights this week.
Chase Strangio, the first openly-transgender attorney in the country’s top court, will represent families who claim that Tennessee’s ban of health care for minors transgender has left their children fearful about the future.
The case comes amid increased opposition to transgender equality, including in a presidential election campaign during which Republican Donald Trump made his fierce opposition a focal point.
Strangio brings months of intensive legal preparation and hard-earned lessons from his experience to the case.
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He said, “I can do my job, because this health care transformed my life and saved it.” “I am proof that we all live together.”
Strangio was born outside Boston, and he came out to be trans in law school. Now 42, he’s an American Civil Liberties Union attorney whose legal career has included representing former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, challenging a ban on transgender people serving in the military and helping win an LGBTQ+ worker-discrimination case at the Supreme Court. He is also the father to a 12-year old, the son a Trump-supporting father, and has an close relationship with his Army veteran brother.
He is also a transgender advocate who spoke out when a number of U.S. States banned gender affirming health care. These laws are part a wave that restricts school sports participation, and bathroom use across the country. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) declared his support for limiting bathroom usage to the sex assigned to birth after the first openly Transgender person elected to Congress.
Tennessee will also argue in front of the Supreme Court, that hormones and treatments such as puberty blocks carry risks to young people, and Tennessee’s law protects these children from making premature treatment decisions.
In court documents, state attorneys stated that Tennessee, like other states, has taken steps to prevent minors from receiving these treatments until such time as they fully understand their lifelong effects or the science has advanced to the point where Tennessee may take a new view on the efficacy of the treatment.
Matt Rice, the state’s solicitor general, will be arguing for Tennessee. He served in 2019 as a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, who dissented from the transgender worker-discrimination case Strangio worked on that term. Rice was not available for an interview before arguments by the state attorney general’s office. However, his background includes two years of minor league baseball playing for the Tampa Bay Rays, prior to earning his law degree at the University of California Berkeley.
After Trump’s inauguration in January, the federal government is expected to shift its position. Strangio says he will continue to advocate for transgender children and youths accessing health care, which was not available when Strangio was younger.
He said that many of us consider our childhood and early adulthood to be lost years. “We were disembodied, from our core,” the doctor explained. The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other major medical groups oppose these bans. They have instead endorsed this type of care and said it is safe when properly administered. Strangio pointed out that medical interventions for children, such as gastric bypass surgery for weight loss, come with some risks. It is important to inform parents and let them make the decision.
He said that the harm is multiplied by denying young people care that they, their parents, and doctors agree are necessary.
The Supreme Court will likely decide this case in the summer.
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