OutSources – Trans Legal Matters: A Conversation with Chase Strangio

Join Angela Palermo for an interview with Chase Strangio. Chase is a Staff Attorney with the ACLU’s LGBT & AIDS Project. Chase’s work includes impact litigation, as well as legislative and administrative advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ people and people living with HIV across the United States.

Chase has particular expertise on the treatment of transgender and gender non-conforming people in police custody, jails, prisons, and other forms of detention.  Prior to joining the ACLU, Chase was an Equal Justice Works fellow and the Director of Prisoner Justice Initiatives at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, where he represented transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in confinement settings.

In 2012, Chase founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund, an organization that provides direct bail/bond assistance to LGBTQ immigrants in criminal and immigration cases. Chase is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law and Grinnell College.

During our conversation, we discuss his coming out as trans and queer during law school, his work at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, working with imprisoned trans/queer folks, doing “impact litigation,” opposing anti-trans bills in state legislature, Gavin Grimm’s struggle in North Carolina, his work on the Chelsea Manning case, not viewing the ACLU as a “savior” for transgender folks, the importance of trans/queer community organizing and community building and the necessity of recognizing and affirming “intersectionality” in our activism.