Strangio: 'You are never just a lawyer. You are the trans lawyer'

Imara Jones, host of the TransLash podcast, summarizes that the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Skrmetti could "decide the overall constitutionality of gender-affirming care for all trans people in the United States," not just youth.

In that interview, Chase Strangio says that while there are "incredible advocates who are regularly appearing" as experts before the Supreme Court, there are fewer people who've been "in the trenches fighting for their communities" and who thus "know, in their bones, the consequences" of what the court is preparing to decide.

Jones: "I mean, you know, that's been a problem with, sort of, American life since the 1970s is the growing you know, one might argue over-professionalization of everything, which means that everything gets separated more and more from the people, which is why things seem to be esoteric and disconnected."

(This feels important to me because it's related to arguments about elitism and meritocracy. When Trump voters say that Democratic voters are elitist, maybe what they're experiencing is that many aspects of society (not specifically conservative or liberal, or otherwise partisan) are elitist. A thought I shall table for now.)

Jones asks Strangio: "After you stand up after the Solicitor General [at the forthcoming hearing on December 4, 2024], look those nine justices in the eyes, and let the words, 'May it please the Court' leave your mouth, what do you think is going to be the personal feeling that you have of both having to stand there at the highest level of your professionalism and at the same time be debating the essence of your humanity, facing off on the other side against people who refuse to to see that?"

 

Chase Strangio points out that he frequently testifies in state legislatures and committee hearings where he hears "the most vile misrepresentations and cruel things about about trans people," so he's not new to this.

"I cross-examine and depose experts who fundamentally don't believe trans people should exist, the same experts who are being used by the state of Tennessee in this case, and I have argued before courts that I know will have ruled against me, will rule against me in this fight that is so central to everything about me as a human being. So that is something that I am used to. I think obviously in this context where, when you enter the Supreme Court, it, in and of itself, just has that feeling of you were, many people were never meant to be in that space. It is a space that has been occupied by the very sort of, you know, most limited constructions of the elite, and over time, that has a lot more and more people have been able to enter the doors, but only in a very limited way. And so whenever you are in that space, and whenever you are representing a community of people that was never meant to be there, I think it is both powerful and destabilizing. A little bit it's sort of holding that those sets of truths and trying to be as best of an advocate for your community as you can be knowing that so much is being projected onto you, so much misinformation, misunderstanding and dehumanization in that moment, you never have the sort of privilege of just being a lawyer. And that is something that I think many lawyers from you know, sort of historically excluded and currently discriminated against communities feel. It's like: You are never just a lawyer. You are the trans lawyer, or you are the Black trans lawyer, or you are the disabled lawyer. People's experience of that obviously affects the theater of the courtroom very significantly, and I think to suggest otherwise would be to do a just huge disservice to the nature of law and how law is made through its very performative elements, so I'm thinking about those things. And then, you know, obviously, like, it's, it's not lost on me that we're having a conversation about health care, that the health care is the very reason I will be standing there in that, in that moment, like there is no version of me that gets to the Supreme Court that has the life that I have if I didn't have access to this health care that now the governments are seeking to take away."

This is from the November 14, 2024 episode of TransLash.

Relatedly, see my info: Will SCOTUS Let Parents and Doctors Support Trans Kids? (5 min read) on Medium