ACLU Disappointed with Appeals Court Ruling that Dept. of Correction can Withhold Medically Necessary Surgery from Transgender Prisoner

NEW YORK - December 16, 2014 – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Massachusetts today expressed deep disappointment with a ruling from the full First Circuit Court of Appeals allowing the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) to deny essential medical care recommended by its own physicians to transgender prisoner Michelle Kosilek.

As Judge Thompson recognized in dissent, prejudice against transgender people played an unfortunate role in Kosilek's case and the majority opinion.

"Our Constitution does not to allow prison officials to withhold medically necessary care because of prejudice and fear," said Chase Strangio, staff attorney in the ACLU's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Project, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Kosilek's behalf. "We will keep fighting until transgender prisoners receive the health care they need based on medical protocols and are not subjected to different standards out of misunderstanding of people who are different."

Kosilek is a transgender woman who was assigned the sex male at birth but her gender identity is female. In Kosilek's case, her condition of gender dysphoria is so severe that she has attempted both suicide and self-castration.

The lower court heard from multiple doctors who testified that surgery to align Kosilek's body with her female gender identity, sometimes called "sex reassignment surgery," was essential medical care for Kosilek. The lower court found that DOC officials nonetheless denied Kosilek's surgery because they worried that their constituents and the media would disapprove.

In her dissent, Judge Thompson wrote that such irrational decision-making belongs in the dustbin of history with racial segregation and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The decision is available at:
https://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/kosilek-v-spencer-opinion-en-banc