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 Federal
Lawsuit Challenges Wisconsin Anti-Transgender
Law
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: October 22, 2007 - 5:00 pm ET
(Milwaukee, Wisconsin) A Wisconsin law that
bars the state from paying for gender reassignment surgery for prison inmates
violates the US Constitution a federal judge was told Monday.
Lambda Legal and the ACLU are suing the state on
behalf of five transgender women incarcerated in Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin law, passed in 2006, bars access to
hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery for prison inmates and others in
state custody.
Previously prison doctors were allowed to
determine proper treatment for transgender inmates. The new law strips them of
that power.
The court has allowed transgender prisoners to
continue receiving treatment while the case is being heard.
Lambda and the ACLU argue that the law is a
violation of the federal Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection - the
right to have the same access and be treated equally by the law.
They also argue that the law violates the
guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment by barring transgender inmates
from access to individualized medical care.
Wisconsin is the only state in the country that
has passed a law barring its Department of Corrections from providing medically
necessary care to transgender inmates.
The law was passed after an inmate then known
as Scott Konitzer sought a gender reassignment operation.
Konitzer who is serving 123
years for multiple armed robberies and for stabbing another inmate was
diagnosed by a prison doctor in 1999 as being transsexual and was started on
hormone therapy.
In 2006 she sought to have reassignment
surgery.
When she was turned down she sued with the help
of Lambda and the ACLU. The four other trans inmates later joined the suit. In
papers filed prior to Monday's oral arguments, the two organizations said that
after the law was passed hormone therapy was halted resulting in serious side
effects. ©365Gay.com 2007
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