Yesterday Carl DeMaio on his new radio show, the DeMaio-Sullivan Report on KOGO, showed his absolute lack of concern for the transgender community in the prison system. During the program on April 9, 2015, DeMaio indicated that he believed that transgender inmates should not be given sexual reassignment surgery (SRS). In fact, DeMaio called the practice “absurd.”
Speaking of reputed savings that the prison system is realizing from Prop 47, DeMaio asked, “Where is the money going? Expenditures like [sexual reassignment surgery].Taxpayer funded, it is absurd.”
DeMaio does not understand the transgender members of his community. I wonder if he would deny medical treatment to inmates for diabetes, hypertension, or the common cold? Medical treatment is medical treatment and the California Supreme ruled exactly that this month.
A Northern California District Judge ruled that sexual reassignment surgery be granted to an inmate because the judge said the procedure is the “only adequate” treatment for Michelle-Lael Norsworthy. Justice Jon Tigar wrote in his opinion, “The weight of the evidence demonstrates that for Norsworthy, the only adequate medical treatment for her gender dysphoria is SRS, that the decision not to address her persistent symptoms was medically unacceptable under the circumstances, and that [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] denied her the necessary treatment for reasons unrelated to her medical need.”
Well DeMaio apparently disagrees. Maybe you should call in to the DeMaio-Sullivan Report today between 1-4 pm PDT and let DeMaio know your opinion of his discriminatory assertion. After all today is the Transgender Day of Empowerment, so let’s be empowered.
The DeMaio-Sullivan report can be reached at 800-600-5646 or 858-569-8255.
Stampp, thank you for exposing another example of Carl’s lack of compassion and understanding of people, especially those that are already marginalized by the larger population as a whole. I am curious what Nicole Murray Ramirez thinks of this.