Trans ACLU attorney to argue in favor of child sex changes before Supreme Court

Attorney Chase Strangio will be arguing before the Supreme Court on Wednesday this week to advocate for child sex changes on behalf of the ACLU. Strangio, a trans-identified female, will be arguing that Tennessee must allow children in the state to undergo pharmaceutical and surgical sex changes.

The US DOJ brought suit against Tennessee, claiming that "the law leaves the same treatments entirely unrestricted if they are prescribed for any other purpose." In other words, if girls can be prescribed estrogen for medical reasons, then it is discriminatory to deprive boys of that estrogen for gender reasons.

As an activist for the trans cause, Strangio has argued in favor of child sex changes and allowing men access to women's prisons when those men claim to be women. Strangio has also said that the concept of biological sex is white supremacist.

Strangio, 42, will be the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court. Strangio has also represented Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst who transitioned in uniform and was accused of leaking documents to Julian Assange's Wikileaks. Strangio defended Manning over a ban on transgender persons serving in the armed forces. 

"I am able to do my job because I have had this health care that transformed and, frankly, saved my life," Strangio told the Washington Post. "I am a testament to the fact that we live among everyone." In 2020, Strangio came under fire for appearing to solicit trans children and teens to message him privately.

The Tennessee law would ban child sex changes whether done medically or surgically. A practice for the treatment of gender dysphoria in young people is to prescribe them puberty blockers to stunt their development into adults, then to administer cross-sex hormones so that the child develops the secondary sex characteristics of the opposite sex, such as a deep voice and facial hair for girls and enlarged breast tissue and stunted growth for boys. Girls will often have their breasts removed, which can be done as early as 12 years old.

After 18, girls will have hysterectomies and orchiectomies, the removal of the uterus and ovaries. When coupled with the continuance of testosterone, this leads to vaginal atrophy. Boys will be castrated, their penis tissue inverted, and a cavity that bears visual similarity to a vagina constructed. Boys who have been on puberty blockers and then estrogen will often not have enough penile tissue for this process and tissue from their colon or other parts of their body will be used. Boys who take this path will never achieve orgasm.

Strangio and the ACLU believe that children and families should have the right to undergo this kind of treatment. Strangio has undergone a sex change as well and has posted shirtless photos showing scars where breasts used to be. "Many of us think about our childhood and young adulthood as lost years, when we were just simply disembodied from our core," Strangio said.

Strangio claims that "There is harm that is compounded when we are forcing young people to be denied care that their doctors and their parents and they themselves all agree they need."

The case was brought after Tennessee State Senator Jack Johnson brought the law to ban child sex changes. Families that were already medicating their children so that they appeared as the opposite sex brought suit. Among them were Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville who have a trans-identified male child, aged 15. Two other families joined the suit without revealing their identities. The Williams family is concerned that they would have to leave Tennessee in the event that the law is enacted. 

"It was incredibly painful watching my child struggle before we were able to get her the life-saving healthcare she needed. We have a confident, happy daughter now, who is free to be herself and she is thriving," the child's mother said. "I am so afraid of what this law will mean for her. We don’t want to leave Tennessee, but this legislation would force us to either routinely leave our state to get our daughter the medical care she desperately needs or to uproot our entire lives and leave Tennessee altogether. No family should have to make this kind of choice."

The child, who has been told that he can change sex with the help of drugs and surgery, said "I don’t even want to think about having to go back to the dark place I was in before I was able to come out and access the care that my doctors have prescribed for me. I want this law to be struck down so that I can continue to receive the care I need, in conversation with my parents and my doctors, and have the freedom to live my life and do the things I enjoy."