# Chase Strangio Born February 6, 1983 in Newton, Massachusetts. American civil-rights attorney, Co-Director of the [[ACLU]] LGBTQ & HIV Project, and the **first openly transgender attorney to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court** — in *[[United States v. Skrmetti]]* (oral argument December 4, 2024). ## Litigation Record Strangio joined the ACLU in 2013 and has been the **lead litigator on the majority of major federal trans-rights cases** of the past decade: - ***Glenn v. Brumby*** (2011, pre-ACLU) — Eleventh Circuit ruling that public-employer discrimination against trans workers violated the Equal Protection Clause - ***Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District*** (2017) — Seventh Circuit ruling for a trans student barred from boys' restrooms - ***[[Bostock v. Clayton County]]*** (2020) — Strangio represented the estate of [[Aimee Stephens]], one of the consolidated trans plaintiffs in *Bostock*. The Court's 6-3 ruling extended Title VII employment protections to LGBTQ workers - **Multiple federal challenges to state gender-affirming-care bans** (2021-present), including the Arkansas SAFE Act litigation (*Brandt v. Rutledge*) and the Tennessee SB1 litigation that became *[[United States v. Skrmetti]]* - ***United States v. Skrmetti*** (2024-2025) — Strangio argued the case at the Supreme Court on December 4, 2024. The Court ruled 6-3 against the plaintiffs on June 18, 2025, but Strangio's oral argument was widely covered and praised as one of the most rhetorically composed Supreme Court advocacy performances in recent years ## Public Profile Strangio has been a continuous public-facing voice on trans-rights litigation through congressional testimony, op-eds, podcast interviews, and (until 2023) extensive Twitter / X presence. His public communications consistently emphasize the **medical-evidence basis** for gender-affirming care, the **political-context framing** of contemporary anti-trans legislation, and the **organizational-strategy questions** about how the LGBTQ legal-rights infrastructure should respond to the post-2022 backlash. ## Place in the Vault Strangio is the **most visible single contemporary American trans-rights litigator** and the central operational figure of the post-2022 defensive-litigation phase of the [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]]. His role at the ACLU positions him alongside the [[Transgender Law Center]] and [[Lambda Legal]] trans-rights teams as the trio currently coordinating the federal-and-state litigation strategy against the contemporary anti-trans wave. --- ## See Also - [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] - [[Queer Liberation Timeline]] - [[United States v. Skrmetti]] - [[Bostock v. Clayton County]] - [[ACLU]]