Recently, the Senate Judiciary Committee began considering the nomination of Justin Smith for a seat on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Smith is a loyalist to President Trump and his personal lawyer. Beyond those political ties, lawmakers must closely examine Smith’s demonstrated hostility toward the LGBTQ+ community. Throughout his career defending anti-LGBTQ+ laws, he’s repeatedly used inappropriate and dehumanizing language while advocating for policies that enshrine ugly discrimination. That record raises serious concerns about whether he can serve fairly and impartially on the federal bench.
In his current role as co-owner of the James Otis Law Group, Smith represents the Arizona legislature, defending an anti-transgender law that bans transgender girls from competing on school sports teams. After transgender girls and their parents initially successfully stopped this law, Smith further falsely argued that cisgender girls would be harmed if they played with trans girls. Rather than engaging with evidence, his arguments relied on fear-based claims that stigmatize transgender youth and exclude them from school activities.
Smith has taken this case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is now poised to decide two other cases about transgender girls’ access to sports. In doing so, he has repeatedly referred to transgender girls as “biological boys” and “biological males” in legal filings. This kind of dehumanizing misgendering — directed at children — undermines their dignity and signals a troubling disregard for their well-being. Trans youth deserve to be treated equally and to participate in school activities with their peers.
Smith’s record extends beyond sports participation. He also represented the American College of Pediatricians, a known hate group that opposes LGBTQ+ rights. In an amicus brief defending a Missouri law that banned gender-affirming medical care for minors, Smith argued that allowing trans youth access to gender-affirming medical care is “specifically designed to entrench a mental health condition of gender incongruence.” He falsely asserts that the only appropriate treatment for transgender youth is shame-based counseling to force them to accept their sex assigned at birth.
Such treatment forcing LGBTQ+ individuals to conform to heterosexual and cisgender norms is known as “conversion therapy.” Decades of peer-reviewed studies continue to show not only that the “therapy” fails to accomplish its goals but also that LGBTQ+ youth subjected to conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide. As a result, the harmful practice has been banned in 23 states and the District of Columbia, although the Supreme Court’s recent 8-1 decision striking Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy puts these protective laws under threat.
Smith’s brief suggests that the safe and effective interventions that every major medical organization support for trans youth are somehow harmful. To the contrary, they are the proven standard of care for trans youth, and the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that affirming care drastically improves their mental health outcomes in over 90% of cases.
If confirmed, Smith will undoubtedly use his lifetime circuit court seat to attack LGBTQ+ people and entrench his personal beliefs, as we have seen from other Trump judges with similar records, like Matthew Kacsmaryk and Lawrence VanDyke. Nearly 650,000 LGBTQ+ people reside in the Eighth Circuit, which covers the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Given his long record of advocating against the rights and dignity of LGBTQ+ people, there is every reason to question whether he can provide those individuals with equal justice under the law. We must stop his nomination before he becomes a judge.
Ethan Rice is a senior attorney for the Fair Courts Project at Lambda Legal.
Morgan Flitt is a Dorot Fellow at Alliance for Justice.