Sam Feder at “Heightened Scrutiny” premiere (photo by Robin Marshall / Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Bailey Pennick
Chase Strangio is taking photos on the press line before the world premiere of Heightened Scrutiny, a documentary that follows him as he prepares to argue for the ACLU in front of the Supreme Court. He’s wearing a black long sleeved shirt with “Protect Trans Kids” printed front and center in bold, white text. This choice of wardrobe is a direct call to action for all audiences, because Strangio is himself at the forefront of the fight for trans rights. In December he was the first known transgender person to make oral arguments to the Supreme Court in United States v. Skrmetti — a case that could deny gender-affirming care for transgender minors and adults if the Tennessee law is upheld.
“The judges are not immune to public discourse,” says director Sam Feder (Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen, 2020 Sundance Film Festival) after the world premiere of Heightened Scrutiny on January 27. “So the more we talk about it, the more people understand that the healthcare for human beings is being decided by nine people, the more the country, the more the press hopefully will pick up on the fact that it is a really inhumane concept. We hope maybe the judges will hear that.” There has been no decision on the case as of this publishing date.
The film takes a close look at the source of the public discourse around transgender youth and the real-world consequences — harmful legislation — of the mainstream media’s relentless coverage and spin of trans issues. Montages of headlines from The New York Times, The Atlantic, and more being directly cited within official documents as proof to further anti-trans legislation is particularly damning.
“When our identities become an ideology then it becomes something that you can debate,” Feder explains. Heightened Scrutiny is committed to letting audiences get to know the lives of the trans people who have been boiled down to an ideology in the public eye. And while this isn’t a film directly about Strangio — both he and Feder reject “singular heroic narratives” — it does let us into the lawyer’s world in an intimate way.
“I was definitely not sold on the idea of having a camera with me while I was embarking on this extraordinarily stressful experience, but I also recognized that the ship has sailed for me in terms of the fact that I am out there, I am visible, and this was a moment in which I was watching this escalation happen on so many different levels,” says Strangio to the Ray Theatre crowd, about signing on as a documentary subject. “When the Supreme Court took the case in June of 2024, Sam said to me, ‘I just want the next generation to know we tried.’ That’s very depressing actually, saying it out loud, but I did really believe in leaving a historical record of not only what we fought for, but also how much we loved each other and cared for each other in the process because that’s going to be our path forward.”
