Ruling buoys killer's quest for a sex change

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I truly live in an amazing state. We may be on our way to bankruptcy, but I'm sure the courts will determine that we are being cruel and unusual by refusing to treat this piece of crap.

Spoiler

An appellate ruling that correction officials have acted with “deliberate indifference” by denying female hormone therapy to a transgendered child rapist is giving new hope to a convicted killer suing for a state-funded sex-change operation.

A lawyer for inmate Michelle Lynne Kosilek filed a plea Thursday in his decade-old case before U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf, saying a May 20 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston for inmate Sandy Jo Battista supports Kosilek’s similar claims of cruel and unusual punishment by the Department of Correction.

The ruling states DOC can no longer use inmate safety concerns, such as sexual assault, as an excuse for withholding hormone therapy from Battista, who is anatomically male, but identifies and lives as a woman.



“The department’s action is undercut by a composite of delays, poor explanations, missteps, changes in position and rigidities — common enough in bureaucratic regimes, but here taken to an extreme,” an appellate panel that included retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter wrote in its decision.

“Medical treatment often poses risks and invites trade-offs,” the court found.

Battista, 49, born David Megarry Jr., has been civilly committed as a sexually dangerous person since 2003.

He was convicted in 1983 of kidnapping a 10-year-old girl from Medway, raping her and stealing the money she’d earned selling fudge.

Kosilek, 62, who was born Robert Kosilek, is serving life for the 1990 strangulation of his wife Cheryl Kosilek in Mansfield.

Kosilek developed breasts from hormone therapy.

He is suing DOC both for permanent hair removal and sex reassignment on the taxpayers’ tab.

Kosilek’s attorney, Joseph L. Sulman, said, “Michelle is doing the same as always, the best she can while anticipating a favorable ruling from the court. The Battista decision shows how what she is going through is not unique.”

DOC spokeswoman Diane Wiffin declined comment.

 

Prison transfer to Bangladesh may be in order. Removal is free there.

 

What a weak case, how on earth can they prove or argue 'cruel and unusual punishment' in this case?

 

It boggles the mind - there's no way the state should pay for that. The state doesn't pay for sex reassignment surgery for anyone else, do they?

 

Admittedly, I've never looked into it, but I think it is safe to say that they don't.

 

Ironically, they do -- or at least they have done so in the past. People born with intersex conditions who receive medicaid can and do get sex change operations to alleviate their conditions. While medicaid no longer covers gender reassignment surgery for trans-gendered individuals (ie people without an underlying medical condition) they have done so in the past, authorizing and covering 5 such cases between 1992 and 2009, when they finally changed their policy, concluding that gender reassignment for individuals without an underlying disorder (an intersex condition) is not only never medically necessary, but potentially detrimental to the health of the individual who undergoes the operation. Putting a sex change on the government's tab is not unprecedented, even if it is no longer done.