This chapter shifts addresses the advocacy agenda of the LGBTQ rights movement, specifically the pivotal role played by the US Supreme Court. In less than two decades, the Court recognized the right to engage in same-sex sex, mandated recognition of same-sex marriage, and interpreted Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include discrimination on the basis of transgender status and sexual orientation as prohibited forms of sex discrimination. These developments fundamentally altered the legal lives of LGBTQ people. However, systemic efforts to undermine the integrity of the courts threaten these victories and the lives built around them. This chapter concludes that the current dominant interpretive approach of the US Supreme Court, known as originalism, is overly restrictive and arguably an expression of restorative nostalgia that prevents the Court from fulfilling its duty as a constitutionally mandated check against tyranny. An independent judiciary can serve as a powerful bulwark against democratic decline; however, courts can also provide a powerful legal veneer for otherwise patently autocratic policies. Democracy scholars refer to this as autocratic legalism. The increasing specter of autocratic legalism in the Unites States threatens to diminish the role of the Court as a tool for democratic self-defense.