Some background information on those involved in the December 4 oral argument of U.S. v. Skrmetti.
The brief for the young plaintiffs indicated there are about 1.5 million Americans who identify as transgender.
Chase Strangio, 42, came out as a transgender man while in law school at Northeastern University in Boston. With this case, he became the first transgender attorney to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court. Strangio has worked on some of the most visible legal challenges involving LGBTQ rights, including Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, and Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ employees from discrimination. It was conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch who authored the 2020 Bostock opinion.
Arguing on behalf of Tennessee at the oral argument in U.S. v. Skrmetti was a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas: J. Matthew Rice, 35, who became Tennessee's solicitor general in March.
In an online news conference two days before the argument, Susan Lacy, a Memphis doctor who is part of the legal challenge against SB 1, estimated she has treated more than 800 transgender "kids and adults," and added that treatment for minors already requires parental consent.
Two fathers of transgender youth also spoke at the news conference December 2: Brian Williams, father of lead plaintiff L.W., and Rick Colby, a lifelong Republican who said the treatment saved his transgender son from suicide.
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