Chase Strangio is an American lawyer, currently working with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Strangio’s work focuses predominantly on transgender rights in the US.
Strangio graduated from Grinnell College in 2004 before going to work as a paralegal at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). GLAD’s main focus is on “impact litigation,” in which a legal goal is set by an organisation (such as the recognition of same-sex marriage), and then that organisation finds “exemplary” plaintiffs to make the case. Strangio detailed in a recent interview with the New Yorker that although he appreciated the impact of strategic litigation, he wanted in his own practice to directly help those in need of pro bono work.
After GLAD, Strangio went on to law school at Northeastern University, where he worked with his mentor, Libby Adler, at Boston Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Services. Strangio was heavily influenced by Adler’s criticisms of prominent legal strategies often adopted to help improve the lives of LGBT+ people in the US. In Adler’s view, these strategies too often focused on acting within the current legal structure rather than changing the legal framework itself, whilst neglecting those most marginalised within the LGBT+ population. Strangio’s legal activism has always focused on those marginalised groups, especially those within the trans community.
In 2012, Strangio founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund alongside Lorena Borjas, a transgender and immigrant rights activist, herself, with the aim of providing bail and bond assistance to trans immigrants. Strangio also served on a working group for lawyers drafting recommendations for President Obama on the incarceration of trans people. Strangio here drew on his experience at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, which provides pro bono legal services to low-income transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people as well as people of colour.
In 2013, Strangio joined the ACLU, serving as lead counsel for transgender US soldier Chelsea Manning. Manning’s sentence was commuted by President Obama in 2017. Strangio was then part of the ACLU team that represented trans teenager Gavin Grimm in his Title IX case, claiming that the scope of Title IX also applied to trans students. After Grimm had come out as transgender, his school passed a resolution that access to changing rooms and toilets should “be limited to the corresponding biological genders, and students with gender identity issues shall be provided an alternative appropriate private facility". Grimm, with the help of the ACLU, filed a Title IX suit, which made it all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, after the Trump Administration changed the Department of Education’s guidance on the rights of trans students, sent the case back to the lower court. In 2020, that court found in favour of Grimm, and held that the school’s policy was unconstitutional.
In 2020, Strangio was a key member of the legal team in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County, which came up before the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs claimed that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The Supreme Court agreed 6 – 3. This was a landmark case for LGBT+ rights in the US, with the Supreme Court majority holding that “an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law”.
With an increasing polarisation of views in the United States, it is possible to foresee a situation in which the rights of the LGBT+ community begin to be rolled back. However, this worry should not cast a shadow over the activism and achievements of Strangio and other similar “activist lawyers” who have worked and continue to work tirelessly to obtain fundamental rights and freedoms for those often the most marginalised in society.
Annabel is currently a law student in London. She graduated with a BA in History from the University of Oxford. Previously, she worked in Equity Research at a large investment bank. Annabel hopes to pursue a career at the Criminal Bar; to contribute to ensuring that all receive equal and fair access to the justice system. She is also an editor at Human Rights Pulse.