Lawyers have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal on behalf of Michelle Kosilek, a transgender woman who has been denied essential health care while serving a prison sentence in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC). The DOC has denied Kosilek gender affirming surgery for decades, despite the fact that experts…
(CNN) Massachusetts is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that the state must pay for the sex-change surgery of a transsexual prison inmate. “Following a thorough review of the decision, we believe the court failed to give due deference to the fact that the Department (of Correction) has and continues to provide adequate medical treatment to…
BOSTON — The governor of Massachusetts is not so sure the federal appeals court judge who found that to leave a convicted murderer to serve out her life sentence as the gender of her birth – male – would be constitutionally prohibited cruel and unusual punishment got it right. He is reviewing the decision and…
Citing her right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment as guaranteed by the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Chief Judge Mark Wolf of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts has ordered that an inmate serving time for murder be given gender reassignment surgery “promptly as possible.” This is the first time a federal court…
