Chase Strangio (; born October 29, 1982) is an American

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

and

transgender rights A transgender person is someone whose gender identity is inconsistent or not culturally associated with the sex they were assigned at birth and also with the gender role that is associated with that sex. They may have, or may intend to establi ...

activist. He is the Deputy Director for Transgender Justice and staff attorney with the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

(ACLU).

Early life and education

Strangio grew up near

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts. Strangio attended

Grinnell College Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-st ...

, graduating in 2004. After graduation, he worked as a

paralegal A paralegal, also known as a legal assistant, or paralegal specialist is a professional who performs tasks that require knowledge of legal concepts but not the full expertise of a lawyer with a license to practice law. The market for paralegals i ...

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) is a non-profit legal rights organization in the United States. The organization works to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status, and gender identity and expression. The organization p ...

(GLAD). He went on to attend

Northeastern University School of Law Northeastern University School of Law (NUSL) is the law school of Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded as an evening program to meet the needs of its local community, NUSL is nationally recognized for its cooperative legal ed ...

. Strangio

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

as a

transgender man A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. The label of transgender man is not always interchangeable with that of transsexual man, although the two labels are often used in this way. ''Transgender'' is an umbrella term that inclu ...

while in law school. After graduating from Northeastern in 2010, Strangio received a fellowship from the

Sylvia Rivera Law Project The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) is a legal aid organization based in New York City at the Miss Major-Jay Toole Building for Social Justice that serves low-income or people of color who are transgender, intersex and/or gender non-conforming. ...

(SRLP) to continue developing his legal skills.

Career and activism

After law school, Strangio worked as a

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Hungary and Singapore, ...

for

Dean Spade Dean Spade (born 1977) is an American lawyer, writer, trans activist, and associate professor of law at Seattle University School of Law. In 2002, he founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit law collective in New York City that provides ...

, the first openly trans law professor in the U.S. Spade's work had inspired Strangio while he was in college. In 2012, Strangio and trans activist

Lorena Borjas Lorena Borjas (May 29, 1960 – March 30, 2020) was a Mexican-American transgender and immigrant rights activist, known as the mother of the transgender Latinx community in Queens, New York. Her work on behalf of immigrant and transgender c ...

founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund to provide bail and bond assistance to trans people. In 2013, Strangio began working for the ACLU. Strangio served as lead counsel for the ACLU team representing transgender

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

soldier

Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage A ...

. He was also part of the team suing on behalf of trans student

Gavin Grimm ''G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board'' is a case dealing with transgender rights. The case involves a transgender boy attending a Virginia high school, who sued the local school board after he was forced to use girls' restrooms based on his a ...

, who was denied access to the boys' restrooms at his school. In October 2019, Strangio was one of the lawyers representing Aimee Stephens, a

trans woman A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and so ...

who was fired from her job at a funeral home, in the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case '' R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission''. The previous month, trans actress

Laverne Cox Laverne Cox (born May 29, 1972) is an American actress and LGBT advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series ''Orange Is the New Black'', becoming the first transgender person to be nominated for a Pri ...

brought Strangio as her date to the 2019 Emmy Awards, and the pair spoke to reporters on the

red carpet A red carpet is traditionally used to mark the route taken by heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions, and has in recent decades been extended to use by VIPs and celebrities at formal events. History The earliest known reference to ...

about the upcoming court case. In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court decided 6–3 in favor of Gerald Bostock, a gay man terminated from his job due to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, in ''

Bostock v. Clayton County ''Bostock v. Clayton County'', , is a landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case in which the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because they are gay or transgender. T ...

''. Strangio was one of the lawyers on the case. The court ruled that it is illegal to discriminate in employment on the basis of transgender identity or sexual orientation. In November 2020, journalist

Glenn Greenwald Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded ''The Intercept'', of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substac ...

criticized Strangio's comments about the book '' Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters'' by Abigail Shrier. Strangio, who had tweeted that "stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on," responded that he was not speaking for the ACLU and said he deleted his tweet because "there were relentless calls to have me fired, which I found exhausting as I was navigating work and childcare." Strangio has appeared on television programs including ''

The Rachel Maddow Show ''The Rachel Maddow Show'' (also abbreviated ''TRMS'') is an American liberal news and opinion television program that airs on MSNBC, running in the 9:00 pm ET timeslot Monday evenings. It is hosted by Rachel Maddow, who gained a public pr ...

'', ''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...

'', ''

For the Record with Greta ''For the Record with Greta'' was an American news television program hosted by Greta Van Susteren, which began airing on MSNBC on January 9, 2017. It was created after she moved from Fox News to MSNBC amidst sexual allegations against Roger Ailes ...

'', '' AM Joy'', ''

PBS NewsHour ''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virg ...

'', and '' Up''. In 2021 and 2022, Chase worked with the ACLU to fight against state legislation seeking to prohibit children from accessing treatment for gender transition.

Honors and recognition

In 2014, Strangio was named to the Trans 100 list for "outstanding contributions to the trans community". In June 2017, Strangio was one of those chosen for

NBC Out NBC Out is a digital portal on the NBC News web site featuring LGBTQ-centric news, stories, and other forms of content. The site launched in June 2016. Brooke Sopelsa, formerly a producer at HuffPost Live, serves as NBC Out's managing editor. In 2 ...

's inaugural "#Pride30" list. In May 2018, Strangio was awarded an honorary

Doctor of Laws A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor (LL. ...

by his alma mater Grinnell College. In November 2019, he was awarded the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

's Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity's 2020 Stonewall Award. Strangio was included in 2020's ''Time'' 100 most influential people in the world.

Personal life

His partner is the art curator and writer

Kimberly Drew Kimberly Drew is an American art influencer and writer. She is best known as the former social media manager for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and her use of the social media handle MuseumMammy. Drew released her first book, ''This Is What I Kn ...

. Strangio lives in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and is co-parenting his child.

References

External links