ACLU Attorney Chase Strangio on LGBTQ Rights

Sep 12, 2016

Chase Strangio ’04, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBTQ and AIDS Project, will give a free talk on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016.

"We Just Need to Pee: Situating Trans Bodies in Public and Legal Discourse" will start at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16, in Joe Rosenfield '25 Center, Room 101.

At 4 p.m. the following day, Saturday, Sept. 17, the documentary How to Survive a Plague will be shown in Alumni Recitation Hall, Room 302.

Both events, which are free and open to the public, are part of Grinnell College's official observance of Constitution Day. All colleges and universities in the United States mark this annual occasion.

After graduating from Grinnell College with a bachelor's degree in history in 2004, Strangio was a public interest scholar at Northeastern University School of Law, where he received his law degree in 2010.

Prior to joining the ACLU in 2013, Strangio was an Equal Justice Works fellow and director of Prisoner Justice Initiatives at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, where he represented transgender and gender nonconforming individuals in confinement settings. In 2012, he founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund, an organization that provides direct bail/bond assistance to LGBTQ immigrants in criminal and immigration cases.

Strangio's work at the ACLU 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. Strangio also has been working with the ACLU in fighting anti-LGBT legislation in North Carolina.

Grinnell College welcomes the participation of people with disabilities. Room 101 in the Rosenfield Center is equipped with an induction hearing loop system, which enables individuals with hearing aids set to T-Coil to hear the program. Accommodation requests may be made to Conference Operations, 641-269-3235.