The ACLU’s Chase Strangio is in retreat mode
And it’s hard not to have whip-lash
December 6, 2025
Many readers will no doubt have come across a December 4 opinion piece and interview with ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio in the New York Times, titled “The Shifting Politics of Transgender Rights.” In it, Times columnist Ross Douthat interviews Strangio about a number of topics related to sex and gender.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Strangio is a woman who refers to herself as a “transgender man” (or sometimes as “nonbinary”). She started working at the ACLU in 2013 and today serves as a co-director of its LGBT & HIV Project.
Strangio stated during a 2019 interview with commentator Chris Hayes, “I am a civil rights and constitutional lawyer who fundamentally doesn’t believe in the Constitution and the legal system.” She is also on record as saying that biological sex is a “legal construct” invented by the North Carolina state legislature in 2016 (2016 also being the year that she published a piece in Slate arguing that there is no such thing as a male body).
Well, the tide appears to be turning, in more ways than one. During the interview, Strangio makes a lot of statements about her new-found interest in discussion and compromise. This is news to me, because for over a decade, Strangio has been insisting that “trans women are women and trans men are men,” without showing even a hint of willingness to engage in either discussion or compromise.
I have been fighting for the sex-based rights of women and girls and for the material reality of sex for nearly as long as Strangio has been fighting against them. If Strangio had ever hinted at wanting to have a discussion with the other side, I would probably know it.
There’s a lot to unpack in this interview, but the bottom line is that Strangio appears to be in retreat mode, which is interesting. Read on to learn more.
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