ACLU Announces Chase Strangio As Co-Director of LGBTQ & HIV Project

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today announced the promotion of attorney Chase Strangio to the role of Co-Director for the LGBTQ & HIV Project. Formerly the Deputy Director for Transgender Justice within the Project, Strangio now serves as Co-Director of the Project alongside James Esseks whose title will change from Director to Co-Director.

“Having worked closely with Chase for over a decade, I have seen the visionary contributions he has made to the ACLU’s trans justice strategy,” said James Esseks, Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “I am thrilled and proud to work alongside him as we respond to the vicious attacks on our community.”

Before joining the ACLU as a litigator in 2013, Strangio 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, Strangio co-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.

Chase has been counsel in a range of important constitutional cases, including the ACLU’s 2016 challenge to North Carolina’s anti-trans bathroom ban (Carcaño, et al. v. Cooper, et al), the ACLU’s challenge to President Trump’s trans military ban (Stone v. Trump), the first challenge to a ban on transgender women and girls in sports (Hecox v. Little), and the case of Aimee Stephens, (Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia), a Michigan woman fired after coming out as transgender. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Aimee’s favor, affirming that discrimination in employment against transgender people is sex discrimination and thus prohibited by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Chase was also counsel in Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Supreme Court brought the freedom to marry to same-sex couples nationwide.

In recent years, Strangio has led the ACLU’s legal strategy against a wave of state legislation restricting the rights of transgender people and their families, including over a dozen lawsuits in state and federal court challenging bans on gender-affirming medical care. In June 2024, the Supreme Court agreed to hear one such challenge in U.S. v. Skrmetti to decide whether these bans violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.