US prison sets transgender inmates guidelines and agrees to pay for their sex-reassignment surgery
Prisoners seeking to change their biological sex would need to be evaluated by medical and mental health professionals, inmates who are transgender or have gender dysphoria will get access to clothing, toiletries and other items consistent with their gender identities
Guidelines to decide whether transgender prison inmates in California can undergo sex reassignment surgery took effect on Tuesday, making it the first US state to offer a regular path to such treatment.
California last summer agreed to regularly provide and pay for treatments including hormones as well as surgery to alter the biological sex of its prisoners.
“California has set a model for the rest of the country and ensured transgender people in prison can access life-saving care when they need it,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of Transgender Law Centre, which represents two inmates who sued the state after being denied the surgery.
Under the new rules, which follow a legal settlement reached in August with one of the inmates, prisoners seeking to change their biological sex would need to be evaluated by medical and mental health professionals, and present their cases to a six-member committee of doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists.
Committee members would vote on whether the surgery was warranted, and a committee chair who is a medical administrator in the prison system would hold a tie-breaking vote.
They would also have to live for a year in their preferred gender roles and undergo hormone therapy.