Supreme Court justices take heat for using male pronouns to address trans-identified female ACLU lawyer
Two United States Supreme Court justices are facing criticism for referring to a trans-identified female lawyer who argued before the justices this week by using male pronouns.
On Wednesday, the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments in the case of United States v. Skrmetti. At issue is Tennessee’s ban on body-deforming gender transition procedures for minors, one of 26 such laws enacted across the U.S.
While much of the media coverage of the oral arguments attempted to pinpoint whether the justices would uphold the law or strike it down, another aspect of the proceedings caught the attention of numerous observers. Among them was Jenna Ellis, a senior policy advisor at the American Family Association and radio show host who formerly served as an attorney to President-elect Donald Trump, noted in an X post that Justice Amy Coney Barrett called “the ‘trans’ advocate (a woman) by the ‘Mr.’ pronoun.”
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Although Ellis did not identify who she was talking about, a transcript of the oral arguments reveals that Barrett addressed Chase Strangio, listed as one of the three attorneys arguing before the court, as “Mr. Strangio” on one occasion. The day before oral arguments took place, Strangio had an op-ed published in The New York Times titled “May It Please The Court: Trans Health Saved My Life.”
The op-ed piece makes it clear that Strangio, who serves as co-director of the LGBT and HIV project at the American Civil Liberties Union and represents trans-identified adolescents and a Tennessee doctor who oppose the law, is a woman. “My presence at the Supreme Court as a transgender lawyer will have been possible because I have had access to the very medical treatment at the center of the case,” Strangio wrote.
Barrett’s decision to address Strangio using male pronouns did not sit well with Ellis. “Why are sitting justices on the nation’s highest court playing into this lie?” she asked. “They’re allowing the LGBTQ mafia to hijack language and force participation in their agenda. Stop it.”
Ellis also lamented that Chief Justice John Roberts had addressed the ACLU attorney by using the courtesy title of "Mr." According to the Supreme Court transcript, Roberts did refer to Strangio as “Mr. Strangio.”
Roberts and Barrett using male pronouns to address Strangio comes as others who have refused to identify trans-identified individuals by using their self-declared pronouns instead of their real pronouns have found themselves subject to repercussions. Peter Vlaming, who formerly taught French for West Point Public Schools in Virginia, was fired from his job because he avoided using the self-declared pronouns of a student who wanted to identify as the opposite sex. Instead, he opted to call the student by their name instead of using any pronouns.
Vlaming reached a $575,000 settlement with the school district earlier this year, six years after his termination. As part of the settlement, his firing was scrubbed from his record. In 2022, a female student-athlete from Vermont was suspended from school for referring to a trans-identified male athlete by using male pronouns.
A survey of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted by Redfield and Wilton Strategies last year found that a plurality (44%) of millennials, referring to Americans born between 1981 and 1996, believe that “misgendering” someone should be a crime. LGBT activists use the term “misgendering” to describe addressing trans-identified individuals by using accurate pronouns that correspond to their sex rather than their self-professed gender identity.
States have taken dueling approaches when it comes to regulating so-called “misgendering,” with California enacting a law requiring nursing home staff to refer to trans-identified patients using their self-declared pronouns and Idaho implementing legislation prohibiting schools from mandating that staff address trans-identified students by using pronouns of their own choosing.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
