Chase Strangio

Welcome to It's Open with Alana Glazer. I'm your host, Alana Glazer. And I just came off of this interview that just was so exciting and interesting. And even though things are so terrifying right now, it reminded me that the fight we're in right now is the process is the reward. It's incredible. And as a millennial, I'm like, no, I'm young. I'm living history. I've seen so much. It hurts. And my guest today is not only living history, but he's writing it. And he's writing it all the way to human rights for all Americans through protecting trans people. He's fucking incredible. His name is Chase Strangio. And he's one of the United States' leading lawyers. He's argued before the Supreme Court several times. He started on the Chelsea Manning case before WikiLeaks was, Wacky Lakes. He was in the case for marriage equality, saw that passed from DC outside the courts. And he is now fighting at the Supreme Court level for trans kids to have access to health care, the life-saving health care they need, and the wild, manufactured fear around trans kids in sports. And he's just so brilliant. And he's somebody that I've worked with in my human rights and organizing efforts, and someone that I turned to for leadership. And I'm so excited for you to hear this conversation today, just two neurotic Jews trying to find their way out of this mess. Give it up for Chase Strangio. Chase Strangio, I'm really amazed by the work that you do and the strength that you have to do it. Well, thank you. I, similarly, when I decided to go to law school, did not imagine my life in New York being in dialogue with so many people and thinking about the work in such a broader way that wasn't about just going into court or advocating in these very micro ways, but thinking about how are we building with each other, both in cultural discourse, but then also in sort of power, material change. And so it's very exciting to be here with you. So you are one of the nation's leading attorneys, defenders of human rights for American citizens. You started in this role in the Chelsea Manning case. Can you review what the Chelsea Manning case was? So Chelsea Manning was someone who was enlisted in the United States Army and during her deployment during, you know, sort of the endless wars that we had at the time and continued to have, came across information that she found just absolutely troubling about U.S. involvement in military action and foreign policy around the world and became a whistleblower and shared information with WikiLeaks, which I think is important to note was very different at that time in the sort of 2010 to 2012 period than how we think of it now. Can you say how we think of it now? I mean, how I think of it now, I guess, is I sort of equate it with Julian Assange and some, you know, and so while I still believe in the whistleblowing and importance of creating space for people to share information publicly, I think Assange himself is someone who, you know, sort of rightly has been criticized for his interpersonal and structural actions. And so I don't think of WikiLeaks in the same way that I did, like in the Chelsea Manning disclosure. Got it. Like it became about him, almost a show about him. Now we're so used to seeing nothing but narcissists in the world. Maybe that's always been true. But like, I think Assange would be very much in my view in sort of in that space. So Chelsea, you know, sort of has this information about gross human rights violations, you know, perpetrated by the United States government around the world, discloses this information is ultimately arrested and is charged under the Espionage Act. And the ACLU gets involved in her case before I start working at the ACLU, addressing First Amendment issues with her prosecution and court martial and the military justice system, as well as the conditions of her confinement. So that's all ongoing. My first year at the ACLU is in 2013. I'm hired on as a lawyer in the LGBT project. And I am aware of Chelsea because I'm aware of the stories. This is a big news story at the time. President Obama has come out, you know, sort of very aggressively opposed to her sort of pronouncing her guilt even before she's had a chance to stand trial. And also sort of undercurrent in Chelsea's case is her transness. It is not the centerpiece. It is not something that's widely being talked about in the media, but it is present in the background. Of course, Chelsea knew herself to be trans, but did not come out as trans. You know, she's in the military at a time when you're not allowed to be trans and in the military. So I think when we think about trans military bans, we often think about the Trump military ban. It was also the policy of the United States Armed Forces to exclude open trans service for the majority of the Obama administration as well. It's funny. Almost the ban actually acknowledges trans people. Yes. Yeah. You know, like, do you know when that came up? To be honest, I don't remember. Like I was folded into the system, certainly. It was. And I'm trying, you know, I didn't know at a time because we were working on challenging it during the first Obama administration. And I was like, you know, sort of in it. And then also just as someone who feels very ambivalent about the military as an institution. And my brother was, you know, deployed in Kabul during this period of time as well. And so I was just thinking, you know, I had so many fraught sort of personal political associations with the military. But I was working on the sort of efforts to get rid of the ban on open trans service. And then also, you know, Chelsea is serving at this time. And she's a flashpoint both in the public discourse as well as for people who are in military service. And Chase, can I like for a second, the distinction between Julian Assange's like, he's the hero of his own story versus Chelsea's whistleblowing, like the sense I'm getting from you is like, this was like a really brave anti-war act that she did as someone who like wasn't trying to be some visible figure in a new story. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a really important way to sort of frame this. I mean, Chelsea's this young, closeted trans, openly queer person, you know, it's not that long after just, you know, the don't ask, don't tell is the policy in the military. And that was just about gay. Yeah. So again, I mean, I think we have these like, not just, but it's like, it's also like ranked and then purposely confused for each other. So I don't mean to be like, that was only that. But I mean, I don't know, like I having a 13 year old now who's like, wait, gay people couldn't get married. Like all of these things are very recent. Like gay people also couldn't serve openly in the military. Like when we were in high school, I think it was very common to sort of for even in women's sports where lots of people were gay. There was this like, no, no, no, there's no gay people here, not in my locker room. And so all of these sort of norms about how we think about, you know, inclusion of LGBT people are new. You were living on in the outsides as gay people, as queer people and as trans people for a very long time, and very recently. And so that's Chelsea's reality in the military. She's someone who enlists to try to have access to resources to change the conditions of her life. And then ends up, you know, as many people are sort of confronted with the hypocrisy of the, you know, the promise of the United States as well as what's going on in our military deeply troubled by it wants to do something about it and pays a very, very significant price. She ends up arrested in brutal conditions first in Kuwait and then in Quantico in Virginia. And then is sentenced ultimately to 35 years in military prison, which is a very high sentence in terms of years. And this was for exposing civilian killings. It was for a lot of, I mean, the disclosures reached a broad number of things, but many of the sort of most, you know, sort of publicly known aspects of it were these videos that, you know, just showed the extent to which there were killings that were happening that were deliberately targeting civilians, targeting journalists. And so that, you know, she ends up being arrested, then tried in a court martial system in the military, you know, so called just a system, and then sentenced to 35 years. The day after her sentencing, she announces through her lawyer at the time that she's trans. The response at that time from the United States government, the Obama administration is we will not be providing you with any medical treatment related to your trans identity while you're in prison. And so we at the ACLU work with her lawyer at the time and partner and ultimately end up suing the Department of Defense, arguing that it's unconstitutional to deny prisoners access to medically necessary treatment. And so that that was my sort of big first case at the ACLU after I started in 2013, representing representing Chelsea in that challenge to the Department of Defense's conditions that they were holding her in. Tanya Did you like step up into the role? Did they ask you to be a part of it? Like, how did you become so called upon in this case? Tanya That's a good question. I mean, it's a combination of factors. One is I'd come from an organization where I was doing prisoner rights work, the law that I knew best was the law related to the conditions of trans people in custodial settings, so in prisons and jails and other sites of immigration detention and other sites of confinement. And then I was the only openly trans lawyer on staff at the time. And you know, at the ACLU at the ACLU 2013, how many people were there hundreds? Wow. And can we paint a picture for what it looked like, sounded like, and felt like to be an openly trans person in 2013? It feels like 2013. Yeah, but it's it feels actually it's so long ago. Yeah, no, it's it is so long ago in the like context of being a public openly trans person or just an openly trans person being in public. I mean, so this, it was a time when for the most parts, you know, there were not media stories about trans people. I think the most common way that trans adults at the time learned about transness was from growing up watching Jerry Springer and other talk shows in which we were sort of ridiculed and the sort of exposure slash disclosure of it's really a man, it's really a woman. And that's like how we all came to understand ourselves. That is so painful. But you have two things you have that. And then for me, the next thing is boys don't cry. So you have you're disgusting worthy of mockery or you're murdered. You know, this is pre Orange is the New Black. So there's no LeVern on television, at least not in that way. There's, you know, no, you know, for better or for us is pre Caitlyn Jenner coming out pre, you know, Janet Mock being in the public discourse, you know, very much pre posed. So there's not really, you know, sort of positive, even even human, even human. Yeah, there's no human representation. You know, if you're if you're a legal advocate trying to make change on behalf of the community, who hasn't reached the point of being depicted as human, you know, this stuff really matters. You can't have a legal strategy that is not working in concert with a strategy to shift the way in which there's an empathy, you know, sort of pathway. And that happens through art and culture. There's no other way. I mean, empathy is not built through a legal argument, not at all. And so we have to be in that in that space. And that that became very clear to me very quickly when I started working at the ACLU when I started representing Chelsea. And one thing about Chelsea is she understood that. So she was very much aware that the conditions of her life as someone who was arrested and facing decades of incarceration were going to be impacted by what she could say publicly, but she was limited in what she could do. And she had to do that in part through her lawyers. And so that, you know, so Chelsea pushed me to sort of be a voice for her. And then I started to see how essential it was through that process that there'd be more voices for trans people in the public. Were you scared? Were you excited? Were you all of it? Were you exhausted? Like, what did it feel like to step into that role that was you were representing someone, but it was also representing your reality? I had a six month old child at the time. So I wasn't sleeping. So I actually think, oh my God, I was just like on an autopilot that might have served me. I'm just sort of like, I'm not going to be able to process what's coming in. I'm just going to try to manage what's in front of me, which included like very steep learning curve with respect to parenting, a very steep learning curve with respect to my job, and just a very steep curve with respect to interfacing with the world. So all those things are happening simultaneously. And I'm 30 years old and also a steep learning curve of sort of who I am. Yes. Because part of the challenge of not having tons of representation is like, what is being reflected to you? You don't have a, you don't know how to inhabit your body. Because we take these stories in art as like a first draft and then we edit based off of them. So then to have like no first draft or like a subhuman first draft, like with fucking Jesus, Jerry Springer, and then boys don't cry, it's like, where do you even begin? Right. Right. And also I'm like a totally like I'm neurotic, I'm Jewish. I'm, you know, like my family is just like neurotic Jewish people. So are you like predisposed to spiral? And the thing about having a six month old, I mean, you're just, you're turned inside out, you're exposed. Like what an interesting and also like valiant intersection you survived of the like deep automatic sensitivity that you have when you have a little baby. And then the like sort of organization you had to have to get through this case. Yeah. And I was, I mean, it wasn't my only case. That's the thing too. The world was also like, we were also had building out, you know, between 2013 and 2015 is when we built this scaffolding and the foundation to strike down balance on marriage equality. And so I was working on that. I was sort of challenging or preparing to challenge the first efforts that were really targeting trans people under state law that didn't ultimately come to sort of fruition until after 2015. But so all of these things are happening all at once. And moving forward to marriage equality, the your role in this fight, let's talk about it. I mean, so the ACLU has been doing LGBT cases for a very, very long time. I mean, going back to the 1930s, and that's amazing thing about being at a hundred year organization is that you can sort of trace the lineage of the work going back in time, challenging cross-dressing restrictions and other things. And, you know, but what happens in the, in the 2000s is there starts to be this big effort to strike down balance on marriage equality, starting at the state level. There's a huge backlash, you know, the George W. Bush years are, you know, sort of characterized by backlash. You have most of, you know, sort of the, well, I would say like, half the country starts passing bands on marriage in their constitutions. That did not happen before that was like a new backlash. And so we're building out of that time in the sort of second half of the Obama administration, let's say. And this goes back to the thing about trans bands and the military, like the marriage equality bands acknowledge, like weirdly, ironically acknowledges the existence of same sex love and partnership. Right. And they can't, right. So they emerge when like the public demand for recognition emerges, you know, and so it's sort of like before it was like, we were sort of outside the public discourse to such a degree, it was sort of like self-evident that we would be banned from intimate partnerships recognized by the state. Then there starts to be more public demands for it, especially like as we're moving into the 1990s. And it's literally like Will and Grace. Yeah. Like literally. I mean, it's like, right, it's not just Will and Grace, but how you can't move through this moment without these sort of, you know, pop cultural references that are changing people's understanding. So crazy. And that's all happening. It's happening in concert. So you can sort of think of like Orange is the new black is very similar to Will and Grace in terms of what it is doing publicly. Right. It's not the only thing, of course, but it is part of the story. So what happens then in between, so 2013, there's a big Supreme Court case that strikes down the federal law called the Defense of Marriage Act. It's a law Bill Clinton signed 1996. Hold on. This is a law Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage has to be opposite sex. Yes. L O L. Yeah. I mean, it's just that they're debating the horrors of gay people being together, having children, the destruction of society. I mean, just really some of the most grotesque homophobia you've seen just on the floor of Congress, these committee hearing reports. So, you know, they compiled this record 1996 that then we're challenging at the Supreme Court in 2013. That's the year I started the ACLU or at the Supreme Court or representing Edie Windsor, who was married in New York to her longtime partner, the Aspire, the Ed Dyes and because of the Defense of Marriage, even though they're recognized as married spouses in New York, although I actually think they got married in Canada at the time, but it doesn't matter. They were married under- Because it was legal in New York? It became legal in New York in 2012, I believe, or 2011 or 2012. At this point, I actually think the Edie got married in Canada because it still wasn't legal in New York. They lived in New York, but they were legally married. New York was recognizing out of jurisdiction marriages, but the federal government, the US government wouldn't. So, for tax purposes, they're strangers. They can't pass property. And so, they are taxed, like legal strangers. So, we sue, we challenge, we win. And at that point, it really does open the door to a massive shift in sort of how the courts are receiving these challenges. And in two years, we go from just striking down DOMA, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, and then all these state bans. So, 2015, Obergefell has decided that is the law that strikes down the bans on marriage for same-sex couples nationwide. And hold on a second, Chase. Can we just stop a second and talk about where you were personally, Chelsea Manning's cases behind you, you're in New York, and going again to the Supreme Court? Yeah. So, this is my first time at the Supreme Court. Well, so, I guess the ACLU is going again. I was sort of very much on the periphery of that Windsor case. It was brand new. I was sort of like, you know, the equivalent of Windsor being the New York state, UD, and, yes, exactly. Challenging the defense of federal law. And so, now we're challenging Ohio's law and Kentucky's law and Alabama's law. And so, trying to say, you can't ban people from getting married anymore. Like, okay, you already said that federal government can't ban their marriages from being recognized, and now we're fighting for the right itself. And like, you're so incredible at speaking, and like, you have all this, I mean, you're an incredible lawyer, have all this stuff at the ready, I'm like slowing it down for a second, purposely, like, for my own brain, for another thing. We're going to touch on this when we talk about the recent cases of trans health care and trans sports. But could we just talk about the, the like, machinery of campaigning in the way that you do, state by state by state, it's time to take it to the top. Like, can you just speak to that first thing? We were talking about this, about health care, building empathy with the general public before doing the sports thing. Can we talk about this in the, in the case of gay marriage? Yeah, I mean, and this is the model that's often brought out where it's like, the reality is that the public is so against same sex marriage. And there's something that right in this moment, people just do not remember, and it's not that long ago. Like, it pulls horribly. What the fuck, 2013? People are going out, you know, it pulls horribly at the time. It pulls horribly in the 20, like 2000 to 2011, you know, we're still building out of this like ditch voters, or it drives voters out to vote against marriage equality. Okay, hold up in California. Remember, Prop 8 is in California, like we are talking about 2008. There is still such a deep discomfort. I mean, remember, Obama, right? And also deep canvassing against Prop 8, right? Hollywood, the gayest place in America. Yeah. The Broadway probably was like, you know, like, and, and Prop 8 was anti gay marriage and the deep canvassing that people did probably from LA and Hollywood, and Hollywood throughout the state was what really turned that there. So you, you are working to overturn this in New York. And now, okay, I've like my heart has caught up. And if we take a step back, like what is the point? The point is a, like things that felt impossible changed very quickly, so much so that people don't even remember the recent past when they themselves were against this. And let's pause there. They changed very quickly because of human powered magic, good love. Yes. Like they changed because of literally organized love. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's what it was. And it was not. And this is what I remind people all the time, like the legal arguments stayed exactly the same. And, you know, we lost those arguments in the most progressive courts in the state high court of New York, we lost. And for, you know, 2006, we lose in the New York state high court. For gay marriage. For gay marriage. One of the gayest places in the country. New York. And then have been four decades at this time, obviously. And then nine years later, we win at the U S Supreme Court with the very same arguments. Obviously, we didn't have a new constitution. What fundamentally changed with people's understanding of connection to the demands, the humanity, the realness, the tangible experience of, of gay people, of same sex, parent families. And it was a massive shift. And it had taken decades. I think it's really important that we don't suggest, Oh, it was nine years. And that was it. It was all those other years, sort of building and learning and struggling and failing. That's part of winning. That is part of changing. You have to have those, you know, sort of the backlash, the failure. And that's part of sort of understanding how are we going to connect with people who are, you know, resistant to connecting with us? And how are we going to move forward? I mean, we are in this like, just painful, terrifying, not scary, terrifying, because it's terrorizing this moment. And we have the playbook over and over again, starting with abolition in this country from seemingly impossible circumstances. It's about connecting and organizing love. Yeah. And together, I mean, it's like what, you know, I think that, you know, going to sort of bad bunnies message, like we can be hardened and turn to our own sort of anger, hate driven response, or we can be driven by our love for our own people. And so when we, I think that when we move away from abstraction, we move away from vengeful rage towards this sort of expansive sense that, and not in a Pollyanna way, like in a real deep love transformational way, that is what that's how we build because we're energized by it. We're not exhausted by it. I'm not exhausted by mobilizing out of the absolute obsessive love I feel for queer and trans people, like at all. Oh my God. So talk to me about going to the Supreme Court. You're still in your early 30s. You've got a fucking toddler and you had this big case behind you. You overturn it in New York. What did it look like? LOL, you're in DC, right? What did it look like and feel like to be there that day that it was overturned? I mean, so I think the thing about Supreme Court cases is it's like the, it's the building up that like writing, the preparing, the arguments is so relentless. It's so exhausting. I'm exhausted. It's hearing about it. And it's like one case and you're spending every waking second and you're in the middle of the night and you're working, you know, sometimes you're like, oh, we used to rewrite this sentence like 400 times. It's not getting the point across. So it's so much work and so many people are working so hard to come up with new arguments because the Supreme Court, it's different than when you're arguing at lower courts because in the lower courts, in the appeals courts, you're just convincing those courts to apply Supreme Court precedent to cut, to some outcome. When you're at the Supreme Court, you're, you have, it's a new, you're sort of weaving a whole new story to convince them on first principles. And so you're just like, what is the best way to do this? Can I stop and ask, you're saying at the lower courts, it's about getting up, up, up at the Supreme Court. It's literally about the decision. Yeah. It's about the decision and also the story and the strategy changes dramatically because it's about, and it's not just about, and it's about what the decision is and how you get there. Cause as, you know, remember what during Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, okay. So nobody wants to relive this moment, but one of the things that was so, shout out to Dr. Christine Blaisey. Yeah. My God, was that brave, what a just gunky, ugly, Thankless, horrible, like nightmare. Like speaking elegantly through a whiny, crying baby, crying about beer, if I remember correctly. Yeah. There was a lot of whining and, and, and I think for me, the other thing is that there was just the dis, and the, like sort of the disingenuousness. And so he's asked over and over about Roe v. Wade in that confirmation hearing. And he's like, I'll follow precedent, but here's the thing. The Supreme Court makes the precedent. Yes. The lower courts have to follow the decision and Roe v. Wade, but it was such a ridiculous answer because the Supreme Court changes the precedent. When you're there, you're starting from the sense that you can just anything is possible. And so that is, I think what happens when you get to the Supreme Court is they're not bound really by much as we're seeing over even more now. And so, so much of the work is building up to that moment. And it was, you know, I did have a very, you know, I had a two, three year old child. I'm trying to, you know, the sort of quintessential working parent reality where you're like, Oh my God, I'm failing at parenting and I'm failing at working. And it's never, you're never doing the right thing at the right time. Oh my God. And so, yeah, so it was, it was my life. And I was working with Chelsea at the same time. So it was a lot of things happening at once. And I'm young. And so I'm trying to just, you know, learn too. So I'm also very invested in learning how to be a very, you know, effective litigator, a Supreme Court litigator so that I can also do trans cases, knowing my community is sort of really struggling. But so ultimately, we file, we have arguments and the decision comes down June 26, 2015. And I'm in DC that day, outside the court. You know, I was someone who I was a very public critic of the LGBT movements focus on marriage. It was not where I would have put our resources. I was concerned about what it would mean. And at the same time, like talk about the beauty and power of just celebrating people's love. I mean, there are people outside the Supreme Court that day that had been together for 50 years. And the, it was out of the realm of possibility in their minds that they would ever be able to be publicly recognized like that. And like, there's people singing and choruses performing. And it's just one of those moments where you can't, you know, feel anything, but just absolute celebratory love or what this moment means for the people who risked so much just to be themselves for so long. Oh my God. So 11 years ago, 11 years ago, we had what felt impossible become possible. Yeah. Standing on the shoulders of decades, hundreds of years, hundreds of years of existing, being joyful in who you truly are, organizing around that, speaking up, backlash, repeat, repeat, repeat, all building up to 11 years ago. Gay marriage was made legal federally. Must have felt like, did you think it was going to happen? Were you really like, this could go 50-50? Did you think no way is this going to, like, what did you think? Well, by then, I think there was a strong sense that it would just knowing, you know, you have a five, four court, this is still the Justice Kennedy era. So we have that sense of momentum. You know, they take it, the polling is changing, the country is changing. This is also, you know, remember most of Obama's presidency, first time he doesn't support marriage. Yeah. Wasn't it like Biden, someone credited? Well, Biden just in an interview came out and changed his position publicly long before I think he was supposed to. And then that sort of pushed the administration. And so that, you know, that's all happening. But again, this is not that long ago, right? You know, this is like 10 years ago. Biden's like, I love them. I love the gays. I'm getting married. It's like, what? That was the vibe. It was a little bit like, I love the gays. Like, and we always felt like they all love the gays, but they're like doing this thing where they're like, well, marriage is very this and civil unions. Okay. You know, but they're hemming and hawing and it much like we see the Democrats doing now on a position where they should just take a principled stance and they don't. Democrats should just be the Republicans. The Republicans should be the fringe and progressive fighters should be the opposition. Like, yeah, like whatever it is, I know it's so, it's so crazy. And like, honestly, like, you know, I think every time we hang out or do something, it's like, I almost need to lay the whole landscape out. Yeah. So that I can see what's possible. Cause just to say that out loud, I'm like, we are in the motion toward that. I mean, and obviously they're Republicans are not fringe. They're embedded with the techno fascists and trying to take over as quickly as possible. But public opinion is, is still really matters. Yeah. Still shapes things, pushes things, swings things, swings things. And even if they're not changing, uh, how the current policy is affecting their bank account, they do care about being shamed by our opinion, the, the people in power. They do. And even the justices, I mean, I this, this term, there was a moment where Justice Kavanaugh wrote this concurrence about, um, you know, this idea that it's not such a big deal to be stopped by ICE and, you know, be inconvenienced for a few minutes. If you're a US citizen and, uh, you know, when they were sort of green lining the racial profiling of ICE officers and CBP officers, then we have this big public outcry calling everything Kavanaugh stops and everything becomes a Kavanaugh stop. And it's infused in the cultural discourse. And a few weeks later, he walks it back in another opinion. And so it's like, people are like, I, if I'm not arguing at the Supreme Court, what role do I have? Yeah. What role do I have in speaking up, but makes the fucking difference. So they started calling ICE stops Kavanaugh stops because he writes a, a, a sweet letter about how it's like pretty cool to be stopped by ICE. And everybody's like, shut the fuck up. You're fucking kidding me. This is literally deadly. Yeah. Literally murdering US citizens, no matter what their skin color. And, uh, uh, you know, in Alex Preeti's case, legally gun carrying citizens, which you all said you stood for. So the public opinion actually affects Kavanaugh who's not running for office. He's sitting in a seat, but he walks it back because it matters to him. Yeah, because they are people, they have families, they're, have clerks, they have children in a lot of cases. And so it's sort of like, you know, or a lot of children in a few cases, many, many children. It can be both or no children in some cases, but still like, well, he says enough use. And so it's, they're people, they're part of humanity. And they're trying to separate themselves so that they can, they think that they want to control us. Honestly, I don't even want to give these ghouls this compassion, but they think that they want to have distance from us to control us. But it's like, you actually just want to be part of humanity. You really do. People are paying attention. People are impacted by what we're doing and saying, and you don't always notice it right away. And you don't always notice it because it's not necessarily visible to us. Well, can I ask, how did he walk it back? How did you, how did you see Kevin on walking it back? Because he basically sort of clarified what he meant in a subsequent opinion as much as it feels like there's too much that's out of our control, our organizing, even our discourse is impacting what's happening. And so, yes, it does not mean that we are going from where we are now to where we want to be quickly. It doesn't mean even in our lifetime, but we are moving things. And so, we have to not think that we're stuck. And just coming back to the marriage fights, we didn't change our legal arguments. We didn't. We changed the way our legal arguments were received. And that is the way that people have a role to play. There's something here, you know, like I, in 2016, I started organizing and doing advocacy work. And I'm like, just I've become like so obsessed. I'm so into it. And it like feeds into my art. And, you know, not even necessarily that my work is always like talking about politics or something. But I really want artists to see and hear the way in which we work together, artists and policymakers and the culture, the idea of Kavanaugh stops like, that's somebody like tweeting a good one. You know, Kavanaugh stops and it's like, that's just like human sauce that is like now just over the entire buffet. And we need it. And it makes the difference. It makes the fucking difference in policy. I mean, it makes a huge difference because, you know, it makes there's so many ways it can make a difference in policy. One way is that, you know, what someone's art creates in the world changes how people start to see themselves. They build on that. Like you were saying, it's like a draft that you take and you adapt. And then once you have people doing that, their ability to make change changes. Like if I don't start seeing people, how am I going to step into my advocacy? You know, how is anyone who's doing this work going to start to evolve, you know, sort of their sense of possibility, their sense of their humanity, that's coming from art. And then that's changing individuals who are doing, you know, law policies. That's one way. And then there's the way where every single way in which policy is made, both formally and informally, is done by human beings who are themselves consuming art and culture. Lena waited this interview recently and she was saying like artists are empathy dealers. And that is why fascists are so afraid of art. Because artists bring people closer to each other. That is a threat to the despair of fascism. And that is the way in which art is what sort of creates the distance, you know, between the authoritarian leaders and the people who are resisting and narrows the distance between us as people to see ourselves and others and to build from a place of love and humanity. So gorgeously stated. Okay. So like the third and final act of your career that I wanted to discuss is like the most recent hearings, legal proceedings that you've led regarding trans health care and trans kids in sports, which is just like, oh, chase. It's just, it's just, it's painful because people are just like not getting it. It's so absurd. And the thing that I'll say again and again about cis people caring about the trans sports bands is that they're trying to make it legal and normal for some grownup who isn't part of a school system to check all children's genitals. Is that that's right? That's right. Because we normalized through Jerry Springer, through these other media tools that transness is a fraud that you can uncover. And through this repeated media suggestion that you know who is trans, you have an right to know who is trans, and you have a right to expose who is trans. That opened a norm of deciding that you can just look at anyone and say, I don't think you're the right kind of man. I don't think you're the right kind of woman. And I'm going to figure it out. And that has been so normalized. And the reality is, is you cannot look at someone and know their genitals. And in fact, you should not look at someone and want to know their genitals. That's right. And yet we're normalizing this type of exchange with children through these anti-trans paradigms. And trying to bring, I like, I like, parents don't, I think a lot of people like don't understand this. They're also trying to normalize it in schools, having somebody who isn't a teacher, which by the way, no teacher should know the students genitals or be inspecting them. It was weird enough that we had, remember the scoliosis test? That was fucking weird. Do bending over in a gym teacher's closet for somebody to run their finger down my spine? Like that was weird. Now we're talking about kids genitals. It doesn't matter what they identify as that is fucked up. But when the administration is all over the Epstein files, then the connection really makes sense. And the Republican Party shut down the government so as not to look in these files, wasn't it December 19th, 2025, that these files were supposed to be exposed? Like this is all connecting in a way that is insidious, it's sexual abuse of children and adults, and it's fucking psychotic. I mean, I literally couldn't agree more. I think like, you're just like, what are we doing? Like, and sometimes in these court arguments about trans people, the number of adults, men who get up and talk about little girls' bodies is gross. It's gross. It's like, what are we doing? We're not the ones as trans people, as advocates for trans people, coming in and introducing a conversation about genitals. We are coming in and saying, you know what? I want to be left alone. And for our children to be left alone. Like it is gross. It is creepy. It is disgusting. And it really does connect back to the Jeffrey Epstein files in which so much of our government and our government's history is implicated. It is so gross and terrifying. It is terrifying. And it's like, and it's not, I don't like to say trans people being targeted is a distraction because it has very serious consequences. But I do think it's important for people to look at when it is deployed by this administration. So as one example, in Minneapolis, after Alex Pretti's murder, and after there starts to be widespread backlash in the public discourse to the way in which ICE officers and CBP officers are terrorizing people in their communities, what does the Trump administration do? It threatens education funding to the state of Minnesota because they let one trans girl play on a softball team in high school. So they threaten to defund the entire one. And so it's like, they're like, look, we're have a problem with our immigration policy. Look over here. We actually look, everyone hates trans people. Let's go back to that. We're going to, we're going to threaten Minnesota because they had a one trans softball player. Like these things are happening and they are connected. So I met you through this, this, you know, human rights work, just community organizing. But you know, if you're looking through it through a certain lens, that's what it is. And it's really hard. And people, people think it's this painful thing or a sacrifice. How do you find the hope outside of it? You know, for a long time, I, in like therapy, I realized I was calling like real life and work as separate things. And I've learned to see this all as my life. Let's just talk about the beauty within the work and what powers you to keep going in spite, despite all as one thing. Yeah. I mean, I think long ago, I, I sort of abandoned the dichotomy between sort of work life and non-work life. And there's upsides and downsides to that. There's sort of the like risk that just work is just infuses everything and everything I'm doing is somehow connected to the paid work that I do, which takes over. And at the same time, I love my work. And I get a lot out of my work. It doesn't mean I'm thrilled to go to the office every day or that every meeting I have is exhilarating quite the opposite often. But it's like, I am exhilarated by creating ideas or possibilities with other people. And that's what we're doing. And so even if you are up against a, you know, sort of fight that, you know, you are going to lose in the sort of common understanding of win loss, like we are going to lose in court. I just refuse to hold that sort of binary way of thinking about the work. And part because of what I think about the law, which is it is inherently constrained, you can win in law and still have not done a lot from the community. And conversely, you were actually talking about, you've been also arguing at the Supreme Court level around trans healthcare for kids and trans kids in sports and even bringing a case to the Supreme Court, knowing it's going to lose marks it in history, which is a win. Yes. In the humanities sense. And you're declaring to the nine justices to history, to people listening that there is a fight to be had. We are not going to lay down and let this happen to us. We're telling a story of who we are. And these things really matter. People seeing other people fight for them inspires them to fight within themselves. Like I truly believe that there is just, you know, you just don't know where people are going to find power and what you're doing, but that finding of power and possibility is a building process. Whatever a court says, whatever a presidential election ends up, you know, doing to our lives. Yes, there is scary damage. There is loss of life. The consequences of these things are huge. And that is just part of being part of the human condition in society. And so we have to build through it. And it's okay and necessary to find happiness, exhilaration, joy, pleasure in that. I mean, I think one of the things that makes queerness so thrilling and beautiful across all movements is queerness seeks out joy, pleasure, celebration, parties, fun. And that's not all it is obviously, but you know, queers are fun. That is why you see a lot of queer people in art. That is why you see a lot of queer people in creation because you have like existed outside one of the fundamental demands of a constrained society, which is that you be a man or you be a woman and you have this one form of intimate bond. And if you're already outside that, you already failed that game. You're free. And there's a freedom to queerness that scares the shit out of people because it offers so much choice and choice scares people. But it is like, we are here. Like I am like, I am just like, you know, the thing that scared me the most when I was a little closeted kid was like, what is my life going to be like? And now the thing that gives me so much hope and joy is like, whatever else is going on, thank fucking God, I'm gay and queer and trans and all these things. Like it is just like, that is where I'm like, everything else, like, we're going to make it, we're going to make it good, we're going to make it fun, we're going to make it something beautiful. And that's also why I'm so driven like to art into the like, sometimes I'm so stuck from doing the work where I'm like compartmentalized. And then, you know, I just went and saw Hamnet and I was just like broken open by it. And I was just like, I was like, Oh, like this is like, I need this, I need to be like shattered and put back together. And then in that, you sort of realize that like, yeah, like, we can be fragile and strong and hold all of these polarities at the same time. Thank you so much, Chase. Thanks for talking to me. Thanks for being my friend and collaborator. And thank you for fighting for human rights for every single American. And for being a hero, who is trans and queer and gay? You're phenomenal. Thank you so, so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being in it with me. We're making a big queer, exciting future. Oh my gosh, it really is fun and meaningful to be in community with people and making the world a better place. Chase Strangio is a fucking genius. Thanks, Chase, for joining us and thank you for your leadership through this terrifying time in which techno fascism descends upon the United States and globally, everybody around the world who may be watching this. It's coming for all of us. We got to organize, be together in it and resist and we can because love truly wins. Bad Bunny said it, love, the only thing more powerful than hate is love. Bad Bunny. Just thinking about him. Anyway, thanks so much for joining me today. Wow. Joining me in Chase and follow Chase's career, it really is so inspiring and heartening and enlightening. This has been a Starpix production. I'm going to swallow. I want to thank my creative producers, Anika Carlson, David Rookland, Madeline Kim, Glen Ismaar and Kelsey Kiley. I want to thank our editor, Tova Liebowitz. Tova, love ya. I want to thank the people who made this set look, sound and feel so beautiful today, Rachel Suffian, Lexa Krebs and Kevin Deming. And I also want to thank Raymo Ventura for his beautiful graphics and opening musical sting as well as the band Don Her for the outro music. Did I mention this was a Starpix production? Anyway, see you next time at It's Open with Alana Glazer.