[MsTinkerbelly]

Supreme Court denies review of Seventh Circuit decision striking down anti-transgender law
By Scottie Thomaston

Wisconsin passed the “Inmate Sex-Change Prevention Act”, a law that maliciously targeted people who are transgender to deprive them of necessary life-saving and life-affirming medical care. Three people who were serving prison time sued for prisoner access to this medical care, for prisoners to continue receiving prescribed hormones and care from qualified doctors who would monitor their hormone treatment. The Act was challenged in federal court on the grounds that it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment as well as the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiffs won in District Court and again at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Supreme Court denied review today, meaning that their victory at the court of appeals will stand and the law is struck down.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Wisconsin’s appeal of a ruling that struck down the state’s effort to ban all hormone treatment and sex-change surgery for transgender prison inmates.

Three such inmates challenged the law in 2006, and a federal judge in Milwaukee granted a preliminary injunction to allow their hormone treatments to continue, then heard a full trial in 2007 before ruling in 2010 that Wisconsin’s 2005 Sex Change Prevention Act was unconstitutional on several grounds.

Chief U.S. District Judge Charles N. Clevert found that the law amounts to “deliberate indifference to the plaintiffs’ serious medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment,” because it denies hormone therapy without regard to those needs or doctors’ judgments. He found the law unconstitutional on its face and also in violation of the inmates’ rights to equal protection.

The statute reads:

The [Wisconsin Department of Corrections] may not authorize the payment of any funds or the use of any resources of this state or the payment of any federal funds passing through the state treasury to provide or to facilitate the provision of hormonal therapy or sexual reassignment surgery.

The Seventh Circuit’s opinion, which was upheld today, begins by recalling the findings of fact made by the District Court below. One of the first things the judges note is that experts testified that gender dysphoria is incredibly serious and requires the type of medical care denied to these patients under the Wisconsin law:

These experts explained that GID can cause an acute sense that a person’s body does not match his or her gender identity. Even before seeking treatment and from an early age, patients will experience this dysphoria and may attempt to conform their appearance and behavior to the gender with winch they identify.

The feelings of dysphoria can vary in intensity. Some patients are able to manage the discomfort, while others become unable to function without taking steps to correct the disorder. A person with GID often experiences severe anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders. Those with GID may attempt to commit suicide or to mutilate their own genitals.

The accepted standards of care dictate a gradual approach to treatment beginning with psychotherapy and real life experience [*554] living as the opposite gender. For some number of patients, this treatment will be effective in controlling feelings of dysphoria. When the condition is more severe, a doctor can prescribe hormones, which have the effect of relieving the psychological distress.

The defendant’s argument is a familiar refrain:

Defendants do not challenge the district court’s holding that GID is a serious medical condition. They contend that Act 105 is constitutional because the state legislature has the power to prohibit certain medical treatments when other treatment options are available. And defendants argue that Act 105 is justified by a legitimate need to ensure security in state prisons.

In other words, defendants argue that medical treatment should be given or denied based on legislative judgment, not a doctor’s considered expert judgment after that doctor reviews a patient’s case file. If legislators don’t think certain groups of people deserve certain care, whether or not it’s deemed medically necessary, those legislators should be able to ban it