Lawsuit asks state to pay for inmate's sex-change operation- What do you think?
 

Interesting controversy- Something that came to my mind are transpeople I know that have footed all of the costs for their transitions personally.

Yet, I can see the safety issues and also, state prison systems are responsible for the medical needs of inmates. Insurance reimbursements are made based upon Gender Identity Disorder (as it is currently d3scribed in the DSM-IV which is under discussion for changes).

If an inmate is attacked and injured, no matter gender identification- these costs are paid via the correctional system along with dental care, etc.

What do other people think? This is really complex to me with many variables. I'm sure political conservative tax rights organizations pile this onto the transphobic/queer pile and cost cutting.

Should these inmates have to wait until released to fully transition? And what about those with life sentences or on death row?

My head is spinning with issues involved with this!!
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,57568.storyBy Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times

Lawsuit asks state to pay for inmate's sex-change operation

Lyralisa Stevens says she is harassed and sexually assaulted by male prisoners, and needs surgery to be assigned to a women's prison. State officials say they aren't required to provide that level of care.



April 20, 2011
Reporting from Vacaville— Lyralisa Stevens, who was born male but lives as a female, is serving 50 years to life in a California prison for killing a San Bernardino County woman with a shotgun in a dispute over clothes.

Stevens is one of more than 300 inmates in the state prison system diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, a psychiatric condition addressed in free society with hormone replacement therapy and, in some cases, sex reassignment surgery.

Prison officials have provided female hormones for Stevens since her incarceration in 2003. But now she is asking the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco to require the state to pay for a sex-change operation.

Stevens, 42, and her expert witnesses say that surgery is medically necessary, and that removal of her penis and testicles and transfer to a women's prison are the best way to protect her from rape and abuse by male inmates.

As prison officials have struggled to address chronic overcrowding, the constant threat of gang violence and a health system that federal judges have equated with "cruel and unusual" punishment, they have also gone to court multiple times to answer allegations that they failed to properly treat and protect transgender inmates.

Judges have sided with transgender prisoners — who according to a UC Irvine study are 13 times more likely to suffer sexual assault than other inmates — on some significant cases. In 2009, the California Supreme Court ruled that an inmate could sue guards for failing to protect her from repeated rapes and beatings by her cellmate. In 1999, an appeals court ordered prison officials to provide hormone therapy to inmates who were already taking them when they arrived. The treatments cost about $1,000 a year per prisoner.

A ruling in Stevens' favor would make California the first place in the country required to provide reassignment surgery for an inmate, according to lawyers for the receiver appointed to oversee California's troubled prison health system. They argue that the state should be required to provide only "minimally adequate care," not sex-change operations that cost $15,000 to $50,000.

Stevens, who has a slight build — 5-foot-6 and about 115 pounds — and entered prison with silicon injections in her breasts and hips to feminize her physique, said in a court filing that she feels like she's under threat of sexual assault in the men's facility and wants the surgery, in part, so she'll be sent to a women's institution.

"The male inmate is not expecting to see breasts … in the shower next to him," Stevens wrote. The situation can lead to violent disputes among the men and sparks attacks against transgender inmates, who may have less upper body strength because of the hormone therapy, Stevens said.

In a court filing supporting Stevens' petition, psychotherapist Lin Fraser said she has "grave concerns" for Stevens' safety because she "had been put alone in cells all night long with men who threatened and abused her."

California law requires prison administrators to assign the state's nearly 162,000 inmates to men's or women's institutions based on "gender," which officials determine solely by a prisoner's genitals. Richard Masbruch, who tried multiple times to castrate himself while in a Texas prison and eventually succeeded, is in the California Institution for Women inChino. Masbruch, who goes by the name Sherri, was transferred from Texas to serve 40 years for a 1991 rape in Fresno.

While confronting complaints and lawsuits by transgender inmates challenging their housing assignments during the mid-2000s, the California prison system commissioned a study by UC Irvine sociologists to help them understand the small, uniquely vulnerable population. The study found that 59% of transgender inmates said they had been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted behind bars, compared with 4.4% of the general prison population, lead researcher Valerie Jenness told the state Senate Public Safety Committee.

Despite those numbers, 59% of transgender inmates said they did not want to move to a women's institution.

"The advantages of being in a men's prison include the pursuit of sex and the possibility of securing a male partner," Jenness said. "Concern about safety is not a main factor in predicting [housing] preferences."

Stevens declined to join a group of transgender inmates interviewed by The Times recently at the prison system's main medical facility in Vacaville. But six others — of the 30 to 50 transgender inmates housed there at any given time — spoke candidly about their lives in prison.

Thomas Strawn, 52, who uses the name Lisa and is serving a life sentence after a third-strike conviction for burglary, said she is in a committed relationship with the man in the next cell and would not want to move.

"I stayed single for an entire year when I got here," Strawn said. "But now I got with somebody and I've been with him now two years."

Others, such as convicted killer David, or Bella, Birrell, 58, who said she had been raped in prison, would like to be transferred to a women's facility. "You don't have to worry about the constant harassment like you get from the men here," she said.

Only two of the six said they would be interested in a sex change operation if a court order compelled the state to pay the costs.

"I had made plans to try to get [the surgery] done before I committed the crime that I did," said Steve Alamillo, 39, who goes by Nikkas and is serving life for first-degree murder. "If the state can do that stuff, absolutely."

Willie Murphy, 47, who is also known as Mena and is serving life on a third-strike conviction for burglary, was among the majority, preferring to "keep what I got."

Surgery is where the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation draws the line.

"A prison is not required by law to give a prisoner medical care that is as good as he would receive if he were a free person, let alone an affluent free person," attorney Steven J. Bechtold, who represents the receiver, wrote in the state's response to Stevens' petition for the operation.

The prison system has lost on a similar point before. The state provides hormone therapy today because a federal court found in a 1999 case that failing to continue treatment for inmates who were on hormones before coming to prison amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

"We regularly get questions about why we are treating these patients," said Dr. Joseph Bick, chief medical officer at Vacaville. "The bottom line is, not only is it appropriate, but it's mandated by federal courts."

Stevens, who has fathered three children, argues in her court case that the cocktail of estrogen and testosterone-blockers the state has provided since her incarceration in 2003 are no longer adequate to combat her emotional distress. Failing to provide surgery could increase her "risk of future self-harm," wrote Dr. Denise Taylor, a medical expert who filed a brief on Stevens' behalf.

Taylor also argued that leaving Stevens on estrogen therapy could lead to the reemergence of a benign tumor removed from her brain in 2005.

Bick, who filed a declaration with the court in January defending the state's position, said the previous tumor was not believed to be caused by estrogen therapy. He said Stevens' treatment in prison has been "adequate and successful."

Perhaps the biggest threat to Stevens' case is the state's budget crisis, in the view of several transgender inmates interviewed. They worried that a judge might be reluctant to rule in her favor with the state facing hard times.

"If I were out there, I wouldn't understand, especially if I was unemployed or trying to support a family," Birrell said.

"But if you could only go into our heads for a day or two to see what we go through internally," she said, "you would get a greater appreciation of how devastating it is to be a transgender individual locked up in a man's prison."

jack.dolan@latimes.com

prison blues
 

I understand the arguement. I think she is lucky to get continuing hormone treatments.(If to continue or not continue hormone treatments is seen as a life threating possibility thats understood.)
She is incarcerated for a reason- I say 3 hots & a cot. we have people on the outside that need tax money for just getting 1 or 2 hots a day and a shelter bed to rest on for a minimal amount of time and that includes children. When you break laws(murder- not respecting someone else right to life) don't ask for handouts from the govt to make you as you see yourself thats up to the individual. Normal citizen rights & to act freely are revoked when they are a prisoner-thats the whole idea.
Sorry but its just not All About Her.
Should be interesting to see what the ruling is

It will be interesting. California is in a major financial mess as many states are. Education is facing further cuts as well as all social services. This on top of what the federal cut backs will be.

It's a difficult question.

I agree that many prisoners do in effect have better health care coverage than many working people not in prison, which I agree seems very unfair.

I think it depends on how the courts see being Transgender and if not paying for sex reassigment surgery is seen as cruel and usual....

I really don't know where I fall on the subject, but for me a murder change would be very different than a 3 strikes drug or burglary charge....but you can't provide medical care based on whar crime was committed?

Slippery slope.
Either way.

From DAYWALKER'S post :

. Frankly, if we're gonna feed Death Row Inmates
for 20+ years, why would this expense be deemed as unacceptable?





Thinking Out Loud.


The Inmate commited a heinous crime; who is going to weigh
the crime and punishment on a scale and draw the lines?


MY REPLY Post:

Very true however lets not through out the baby with the bath water.
nourishment is a necessity for All. Boobs for One transexual is a necessity - shes going a mind F*%# on society
deathrow , life in prison not a fix.... option to sign a consent form as test subject for cancer ,aids drugs and the like thats more of a form of giving back to the society but is it conpensation for murder & will she kill again? nothing gets canceled out but where do the guilty party's desires become legitimate

Good point about rape in prison- no matter the gender.

You bring up my initial feelings when this story hit our CA news waves. I know a lot of transpeople that do exactly this- do a financial plan for surgeries- totally out of pocket. These are tax paying people here in CA. In some situations, insurance coverage is utilized- but damn few. The hormone treatment also needs doc visits, blood work, follow-ups, etc. Then there can be individual problems to work through.

I have no problem with basic medical care for inmates- and I don't distinquish between the crimes they committed. I do, however, as you state- don't give a flying hooray about sexual predators that kill and torture. I worked too long in victim's rights advocacy and with sexually abused kids and 99.9% of those cases in which I did expert whitness work, the perp was not new to the criminal justice system. He or she had perpetrated before.

I think a diabetic ought to get insulin, etc. and chemo therapy for inmates with cancer- essential medical treatment. Food and shelter.

Until or unless the state of CA is going to pay for these kinds of services for all transgendered people, or there are changes in insurance coverage for everyone, I am opposed to this.

Frankly, I'm more concerned for the safety and well being of public emplyees that work in prisons.

If what im fixing to post makes someone mad,I appologise righ now,but I got to wright it.

I have worked for years as many of us do and have,I followed the law and stayed out of trouble cause im wired that way.Over the last 64 years I have done my best to live with what I had to live with and for the most part as I wanted to.Over the las 20 or so years I live as a male,Im just being me as I am,perfect, no its not.I wish I could have the surgeries to change how my body is but I will never have the cash to do so.I would only have top surgery done cause I can always strap it on.I already had a hysto so im half way there sa far as I can see.To think someone who had comitted a crime and doing a lotta time can have srs to make them live better flys in the face of every trans person who has done all the work to do all this themselves but what ever leagle means they use..work,saveing acount,tax refund ect.I do really feel for them, but they did the crime so in my eyes they gave up the right to use my tax money to have srs.Houseing,food,clothing proper medical care fine with me..the rest Bull s*%t.

Thank You Mr.Day.I read on yahoo that we do less and less for the needy than most countrys do.There is something fundamentaly wrong when the homeless get by on so little and the ppl who serve time amy get the extra things they think is nessary.Hog wash I say!

I'll take a bite :)
Yes I suppose so but to me prescription is an umbrella term.(a control that requiers a doc's consent ~doesn't mean it's necessary) to keep a person alive ,for physical pain sure. the prisoner in question is on death row if she doesn't get what she desires then she will suffer psychologically~ in prison she should be prescribed medication for disappointment.

It keeps the lawyers in a job we aren't as affluent as we once were when that happens most of the time everyone is heard because the world is listening. but not so much any more

Yes, my mind has been wondering to lawyers!

Something else I thought of that is kind of icky is that what if trans organizations that I have always felt good about and believe do a lot to fight transphobia, etc. take the stand that trans inmates should have srs paid for by the state?

My concern is about how this could play into the hands of all of the right wing taxation organizations and really be used to further promote transphobia. Some would love to use this like they did with Tranny-Care and Obama's health care reform efforts. I don't want to be associated with things like that, yet I can't back this.

Although, from a lot of the posts by trans folks here that are transitioning on their own dime, maybe this won't happen. LOL, sometimes things get pretty goofy in CA. I love my home state, but I'd rather see any public money going toward social and medical services that support transgendered people outside of the correctional system. We do have some public programs here, but they are being hit due to our very large deficit- like all social service programs.

As far as rehabilitative programs in our correctional system, I have always felt that we would be better off in the long run focusing on juvenile populations before they enter the adult system- more of a preventative focus.

Keeping my eye out for news on this here in CA. If anyone else has links/info- please post it.

Our community will never get a 100% A-OKAY from any part of society.
I appreciate you sentiment Atlast ...however it's a runaway train this system & I wouldn't call it corrections not by a long shot. I just think that we are too indulgent on thinking we are superior beings and the thought of rogue humans as part of our spieces starts a philisophical dialogue that has lasted since the human race has exsisted. what do we do with the ugly side of humanity? It still has a human face and familiar wants and needs (good & bad) as the rest of us ..it just went astray?
I agree you can tap into the young offenders at a higher % ( yes were are all numbers :-)

Bottom line there is no bottom the discussion will continue. this it a three ring circus headline grabber and does nothing for our community or the human race.