An attorney poised to become the first transgender person to argue before the Supreme Court suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris does not “give a s*** about trans people,” according to recent posts on social media.
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to allow Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union‘s LGBTQ and HIV Project, to argue in early December on behalf of the families of three minors in Tennessee who challenged the state’s cross-sex hormone ban for patients under 18. The case is expected to be one of the highest-profile of the Supreme Court’s term.
Strangio, a biological female who uses “he/they” pronouns, has made hundreds of posts online advocating broad access to medical procedures, including for “trans youth,” and has a history of promoting the notion that sex is subjective and that doctors merely “assign” it at birth.
“Our genital characteristics are one component of who we are and do not define, medically or biologically, our sex,” Strangio wrote for Slate in July 2016. “Additionally, all components of sex from genitals to hormones to chromosomes exist on a spectrum rather than as a binary.”
The left flank of the Democratic Party agrees, and those beliefs about gender have caused intraparty rifts this election cycle. Strangio is supporting Harris but devoted a lengthy Instagram post to those on the Left who say “Harris and the democrats” don’t care about transgender people.
“I don’t disagree,” Strangio said before arguing in a separate post that a second Trump presidency would “mean legitimizing government discrimination against trans people for generations.”
“I understand this is deeply upsetting for some people,” Strangio said of supporting Harris, adding, “I believe our government is funding and enabling a genocide. And has been for decades.”
“I am defending trans life and bodily autonomy as best I can in a violent and compromised system,” Strangio said.
Strangio’s remarks come as Harris and other Democrats have, in recent months, dodged questions on the extent of their support for transgender rights. In the past two weeks, the Trump campaign has poured more than $21 million into highlighting Harris’s past support of funding transgender procedures for people incarcerated in prisons or Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, according to her response to a 2019 ACLU survey.
Harris was also evasive on the issue when asked by NBC News’s Hallie Jackson to clarify her stance on transgender procedures. The Democratic candidate said that while she believed transgender people “should be treated with dignity,” treatments are ultimately a “decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary.”
Strangio defended Harris in a new Instagram post on Thursday, calling Harris’s vagueness on the matter during the NBC interview a form of “strategic protection” while suggesting the type of judges appointed under Biden and Harris “makes a difference” for transgender court cases.
“People are suggesting it shows she is abandoning trans people,” Strangio added. “I have a very different read.”
Despite Strangio’s frequent posting and exercise of free speech, the attorney called for the silencing in 2020 of author Abigail Shrier, a bestselling author who has written extensively about the subject of transgender people who come to regret their decisions to make life-altering changes to their body.
“Stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on,” the attorney for the free speech legal firm said in 2020.
Strangio has also publicly cast doubts that the Supreme Court would strike down Tennessee’s ban on cross-sex hormone procedures for minors, according to a Law Dork podcast episode, during which the ACLU attorney admitted people are asking, “Why would you take this to the Supreme Court, knowing that the Supreme Court is a risky” move.
Justices will hear arguments in United States v. Skrmetti on Dec. 4 in response to a petition by the Justice Department after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld Tennessee’s law, marking a blow against the ACLU’s case.
Do No Harm, an organization advocating the protection of children from underage transition procedures, called the ACLU’s selection of Strangio a flagrant move for “identity politics over science.”
“The choice of Chase Strangio—who has rejected the idea of biological sex—to argue before the Supreme Court reaffirms the ACLU’s commitment to fact-free identity politics over science,” said Stanley Goldfarb, board chairman of Do No Harm.
“As we pointed out in our amicus brief, the Tennessee law follows medical ethics and that these sex-change procedures are unsupported by evidence-based medicine,” Goldfarb added. “We look forward to oral arguments and believe the Court will uphold Tennessee’s protection of children from this harmful ideology.”
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The Skrmetti case focuses on the narrow question of whether the ban on transgender medical treatments for children violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. While the Supreme Court granted the ACLU’s request for divided arguments in Skrmetti, justices declined the organization’s request to consider a due process-related complaint.
The Washington Examiner made multiple attempts to contact the ACLU and Strangio.