Who Came Before Chase Strangio?

My Interactions with a Trans Forerunner

In December of 2024, the case of United States v. Skrmetti was litigated at the Supreme Court. The justices are now considering if a Tennessee law banning gender affirming care for minors violates the Constitution's equal protection guarantee. Chase Strangio represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and he became the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court. It's wonderful that a transgender lawyer could authentically be himself as he argued before the Supreme Court and this is a great milestone in American history.

Chase Strangio (Credit: Chase Strangio’s Instagram account @chasestrangio)

In some media stories, I've seen Chase Strangio listed as "the first transgender lawyer" to argue before the court. CNN had this story that he's the first known transgender lawyer to argue before the court. Neither of these two statements are true. Chase Strangio is absolutely the first open and out trans lawyer to argue before the supreme court, and that is amazing. But trans lawyers have argued before the Supreme Court pretransition. Even if you don't know who has done this, with all the people who have argued before the Supreme Court, it's obvious we've had trans lawyers argue before the court and win before Chase Strangio argued in December of 2024. But I can go one step further as I've met a trans lawyer who has argued before the Supreme Court and won. In January of 2000, Joanie Rae Wimmer argued and won the class of one Equal Protection case in the U.S. Supreme Court, Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562. Joanie had not yet transitioned when she won the case, so she was still going by her deadname and that is the name still listed in the documentation of the case. It's REALLY important to note that other trans folks have argued in front of the court before Chase Strangio did. So much trans history is already erased because our trans forerunners so often could not safely be themselves. We have to do better to ensure we don’t participate in erasing trans history, like Joanie’s Supreme Court win.

Joanie is the only open and out person I met offline who matched my gender experience and was older than me before I realized that I needed to transition. Just stop and think about that for a moment. I only saw who I was reflected in a single person that I could follow. I still marvel at being able to be here, with so few paths illuminated.

I've had two significant interactions with Joanie. The first was in June of 2014. That month is significant because the Illinois law that granted same sex couples the right to marry took effect that month. This was a full year before the Supreme Court verdict in Obergefell v. Hodges granted the right for same sex couples to marry across the rest of the country (note: if Obergfell gets overturned, Illinois still has protections for marriage in place). I had a friend, and we'll call her Anna, who was getting married to her wife the first month that same sex marriage became legal in Illinois. Anna and I grew up together and were in related youth groups. She was in a girls version and I was unfortunately in a group that aligned with my gender expression at that time, but not my gender identity. We reconnected on Facebook and I had been following her journey for the last 9+ months of demonstrating and protesting to gain her right to marry her partner. I was asking her a bunch of questions over time and I could not believe how rude and mean the "Christians" who were counter protesting were and how peaceful and Christ like the LGBTQ+ people like her were. Finally, the bill is passed through both houses of the Illinois legislature and it's signed into law.

So Anna and her partner go to the county clerk to get their marriage license and the county is refusing to issue them one. They are literally holding my friend and her partner up from getting married and won't issue a marriage license despite it being illegal for the county to do this because of the new legislation. Anna is a badass, and fights back. Her complaint goes all the way up to the Attorney General of Illinois, and one of the people that helps her get that marriage license is Joanie Rae Wimmer. In 2014 Joanie is now out and publicly trans and still practicing law.

Because of the support that I had been giving Anna online, my wife and I are invited to the wedding. It was objectively the most beautiful wedding I've ever attended, as the couple put together a ten minute video montage of all the protests that they went to in order to make their marriage a reality. Anna said "I'm not going to sit back and watch other people fight for my rights", and those words are words I try to live by today. My wife and I were able to just drive to the county clerk and get our license over a quarter century ago, and seeing her struggle to have the same right hit home to me for ways that I didn't fully grasp at the time. In retrospect it's obvious that my marriage and Anna's have a lot more in common than I realized in 2014.

Also in attendance at the wedding was Joanie. Joanie is visibly trans. I mean, she's a lawyer that won a case at the Supreme Court and no one can ever take that away from her. In order to claim that as part of who she is, it requires that she has to be linked to her deadname. This is something so many trans folks have to deal with when they transition as adults, with situations where your only options are outing or erasure. Joanie chose outing as her professional accomplishments required it. I can't process what THAT process was like for her to transition in the 00s, having all your professional accreditation in your deadname.

Joanie Wimmer (credit: Joanie’s social media account)

My wife and I interacted with her for a few minutes at the reception. She's in attendance and is visibly trans. At the time I was uncomfortable. I was so uncomfortable, because her existence went against everything I was taught from the culture about gender identity and expression. In 2014 every time I had looked into my gender incongruence, I didn't have to look far to find a dead end. Some of what I thought:

"I won't look like a woman". Joanie was visibly trans and was living her best life.

"How would I be a woman and work?" It didn't stop Joanie. Her career didn’t end after winning a case at the Supreme Court. By all measures she continued having a successful practice after transitioning.

"I could not handle the attention of people looking at me and having my appearance drastically not fitting in with societal expectations." That was one hundred percent true at the time. Yet here was Joanie. Thriving despite her appearance not fitting in with societal expectations. It was society’s problem, not hers.

"I'll be discriminated against." Yep. That will absolutely happen. But Joanie is proof that trans people can thrive despite that.

In 2014, I wasn't even fully comfortable with the concept of same sex marriage. I had just been in on mission trip to another country in 2013 through my evangelical church. Anna sharing her journey of advocating for her right to marry really made an impact on me and I thought that people should be given the right to marry who they want and to pursue joy. I had been really supportive through the process because her getting the right to marry would make her life better without having downside for anyone else. Who wouldn’t support that? That's why we were invited to the wedding. But that did not mean that I was actually comfortable when being presented with queer joy. I was decidedly uncomfortable with it. It hit way too close to home. But I showed nothing but support to Anna because my discomfort should not be her problem.

I'll tell you that my wife and I were not the only people invited to the wedding from this part of Anna's life, the youth groups we were in together. However, I believe we were the only ones who attended the ceremony and reception from that group. I was so glad that I was able to be supportive and attend, despite my own discomfort. When I saw the empty chairs at the reception and Anna telling us about all the no shows and people who had to contact them to tell them why they wouldn’t be in attendance, that was what ended my discomfort with same sex marriage. I remembered a family member for our wedding who wouldn't attend because they had travel plans, even though we sent them a place holder card almost a year in advance. I thought THAT was ridiculous and I never thought of that family member the same ever since. I could not imagine having to deal with the bigotry that Anna and her partner did, having people making Anna's wedding about them and their beliefs. People were just abhorrent to them by telling them they were so opposed to their wedding they would not attend their ceremony.

My evangelical church had just preached about how congregation members who are invited to a same sex wedding should not go, but then they need to be prepared to "turn on the love" after. I knew that was wrong and I was appalled that my church would say such bullshit. You can’t deny something that core to a person and then claim that you’ll show them love. I saw what that did to Anna and her wife. It was obvious that if you don't support someone pursuing their joy, no amount of "love" is going to make up for disavowing someone's basic existence. I'm glad to say that this wedding had such a profound impact on me that I stopped attending that church and I now see that church and those who follow these kinds of teachings as they are - far away from God's love for us.

While this event completed my advocacy journey of same sex marriage, I was not ready to process someone like Joanie. It hit so close to home. I remember talking to my wife afterwards about Joanie and she was seeing Joanie exactly as she was, thought it was wonderful that she was there and unapologetic about who she was, and didn't see an issue for why anyone couldn't do that if that's who they are. It’s no wonder my wife and I are still together and our marriage is going strong. I’m so glad I met Joanie at this wedding in 2014 because part of me had this example of how a trans woman can transition and still thrive.

The other time I interacted with Joanie, it was a decade later. After an Illinois court ordered that I needed to out myself with my name change, I was distraught. Anna reached out to me right away, and I was ready to just give up and acquiesce to the court's order. Anna told me, very forcefully, to talk to Joanie. I was very reluctant to, but I agreed. I already wrote about my interaction with Joanie in this article (The Unbelievable Story of My Name Change - Part II), but I do want to expand on why Joanie didn't fully understand why I was going to such great lengths to avoid giving public notice. When I look at Joanie's life, she had no choice but to link her deadname to her current self. Her registration to the bar was tied to her deadname. Her victory at the supreme court was tied to her deadname. She's visibly trans and unabashed about it. I'm just in awe of her, her accomplishments, and the hurdles she had to jump through to truly become her congruent self. I’m also in awe of how much she goes on offense for trans and queer people, as this article from 2018 from the Journal of Oak Park and River Forest, showcases. So few people were able to transition back when she did in 2008 because of societal and medical gatekeeping. I owe a lot to her being able to be so visible. She's the only example I have of knowingly meeting a trans woman older than me before I knew that I'd be transitioning myself. Even though her path was very different from my path, having met someone who was able to take a path and still be respected authentically as herself was incredible. It's difficult for me to state just how meaningful seeing this example was and is to me to this day.

So while Chase Strangio isn't the first trans lawyer to argue in front of the Supreme Court, it's such a big deal that he can be the first to do this open and out. It's a wonderful that he is unabashedly himself. It's so inspiring that he was able to make the case for why trans youth deserve to exist and be themselves as he was once a trans teen. I know there is a lot of pessimism in the queer and trans community about the outcome of this Supreme Court case and rightly so. But no matter the outcome, with his fighting open and out for the rights of trans teens to exist and be themselves, so many trans folks have now seen a visible example of what trans people can accomplish. So many people got to see and read the arguments being made by a trans person at that level. No matter how much this administration tries to erase us, Chase Strangio’s accomplishment will inspire generations.