Taking our fight to the Supreme Court
Chase Strangio (left) and Peppermint (right) address the crowd gathered at the US Supreme Court in December 2024
Last month, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of US v. Skrmetti. Argued by Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project (and 2023 Stonewall Visionary) Chase Strangio, the case will determine whether Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth violates the constitution. According to the ACLU’s website, “Tennessee’s ban, like every other passed by politicians in recent years, specifically permits hormone medications when they are provided in a way that Tennessee considers “consistent” with a person’s sex designated at birth. This means, for example, a doctor could prescribe estrogen to a cisgender teenage girl for any clinical diagnosis but could not do the same for a transgender girl diagnosed with gender dysphoria.”
We know that our opposition’s attacks will not stop at healthcare for transgender youth. As journalists like Imara Jones and thinktanks like the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism have documented, attacks on trans people are an attack on bodily autonomy and self-determination for all of us.
Chase made history as the first out trans person to argue before the Supreme Court. In an interview on the podcast Vibe Check, he talked about the importance of representation in this moment:
“It’s important to me that there are trans voices telling trans stories, whether it’s in the courtroom or on television or in the legislature. That feels important to me, for people to be confronted with the fullness of our humanity.
There have been a lot of trans people in history who have been leading so many fights, and I am driven by their example and their support. I carry them with me in everything I do.”
As the Supreme Court listened to arguments, trans advocates and our allies held a defiant rally outside the court. Emceed by activist and performer Peppermint (a 2017 Stonewall Visionary), the rally featured speeches by trans youth, trans elders, doctors, lawyers, parents, and teachers, all of whom spoke to the brilliance and resilience of trans young people and made the case for keeping the government out of trans kids’ healthcare. Several Stonewall staff and board members were among the hundreds of people who stood with trans youth on the steps of the Supreme Court.
Regardless of how this court rules in Skrmetti, Stonewall and our grantee partners like Advocates for Trans Equality, Trans formative Schools, and others will keep defending the right of trans youth and all trans people to self-determine their own lives.