Chase Strangio is the first transgender attorney to argue a case before the US Supreme Court. Strangio’s story is told in a documentary at next week’s Frameline film festival, and the court’s decision is also expected to come down during Frameline.

The United States Supreme Court has a strange habit of changing the tenor of SF Pride celebrations. Sometimes this is glorious, like in 2015 when the Court ruled that same-sex marriage would be legal on the Friday morning of Pride Weekend. And sometimes this is horrible, like in 2022 when the Trump-packed court shot down Roe v Wade, also on Friday morning of Pride Weekend.    

This year’s Pride is once again likely to be rocked — or exhilarated — by another Supreme Court decision. And a documentary about that Supreme Court case just happens to be one of the features playing at this month’s Frameline film festival (June 18-28).

Above we see the trailer for Heightened Scrutiny, which has its California premiere next Friday, June 20, as part of Frameline. It’s the story of Chase Strangio, a transgender man who is the first out transgender attorney ever to argue a case before the US Supreme Court. The trailer is a brief one-minute deal, but has the goosebump-inducing audio of Strangio making that historic first case from a transgender attorney before the court (cameras, of course, are not allowed in the Supreme Court).

“The film centers on ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, the first out trans person to argue before the Supreme Court,” Frameline explains in their film description. “While Strangio fights a high-stakes legal battle to overturn Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth (United States v Skrmetti), he and other leading activists, like Laverne Cox and Elliot Page, examine how media bias influences the public’s perception of trans rights.”

It is not lost on the film’s director Sam Feder that the decision may well come down during Frameline, perhaps even on the very day of this June 20 screening.

“The outcome of this case is going to affect all Americans,” Feder told the Chronicle. “People think this is just about a small community that they don’t really care about, and they want to talk about other things. But we’re seeing the beginnings of coalition building about reproductive rights and trans rights and immigrant rights. This is all about bodily autonomy, what we have the right to do, what our right is to move through space.”

Frameline says that tickets for this screening are “selling fast,” though still currently available. It’s a 7 pm Friday night screening at the Toni Rembe Theater (415 Geary Street), featuring a pre-show performance by the New Voices Bay Area Transgender, Intersex, Genderqueer Choir, a Q&A after the screening with the director Feder, and if you’re down, an afterparty at the Proper Hotel’s rooftop bar Charmaine’s.

Related: Conservative Supreme Court Justices Once Again Do Injustice to Trans Service Members [SFist]

Image: Frameline