Massachusetts: so cutting edge that it often runs the risk of slicing off its own nose to spite its progressive face. Case in point, from the AP:
A trial that opened more than a year ago has become bogged down in Boston federal court.
There have been hundreds of hours of testimony from witnesses, including 10 medical specialists paid tens of thousands of dollars. The judge himself even hired an expert to help him make sense of it all.
The question at the center of the case: Should a murderer serving life in prison get a sex-change operation at taxpayer expense?
— And for those of you wondering: yes, they appear to be quite serious.
The case of Michelle — formerly Robert — Kosilek is being closely watched across the country by advocates for other inmates who want to undergo a sex change. Transgender inmates in other states have sued prison officials, and not one has succeeded in persuading a judge to order a sex-change operation.
The Massachusetts Correction Department is vigorously fighting Kosilek’s request for surgery, saying it would create a security nightmare and make Kosilek a target for sexual assault.
An Associated Press review of the case, including figures obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and interviews, found that the Correction Department and its outside health care provider have spent more than $52,000 on experts to testify about an operation that would cost about $20,000.
Sure. If only one person wanted the surgery ever. But the precedent such a decision to allow the surgery would set is the real concern, is it not?
Or is the AP simply better at math than I?
The duration and expense of the case have outraged some lawmakers who insist that taxpayers should not have to pay for inmates to have surgery that most private insurers reject as elective.
“They are prisoners. They are there because they’ve broken the law,” said Republican state Sen. Scott Brown, who unsuccessfully introduced a bill to ban sex-change surgery for inmates. “Other folks, people who want to get these types of surgeries, they have to go through their insurance carrier or save up for it and do it independently. Yet if you are in prison, you can do it for nothing? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Take a moment to let that sink in. The Mass. legislature refused to pass a bill banning sex-change operations for inmates at public expense — even though the surgery for those not sentenced to prison for a crime is elective, and therefore, in most cases, an out-of-pocket expense.
Why, you ask? Well, I suspect it’s because the Brahmans are enthralled by the kind of “gender theory” cant that academics and social activists like to trot out to defend their social engineering experimentation.
To wit:
But advocates say in some cases — such as that of Kosilek, who has twice attempted suicide — sex-change surgery is as much a medical necessity as treatment for diabetes or high blood pressure.
“The duty belongs to the prison to figure out how to fulfill its constitutional obligations to both provide adequate medical care and provide a fundamental security for all inmates,” said Cole Thaler, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a gay- and transgender-rights group.
No. Actually, the duty belongs to the person seeking the operation to stay out of prison, save up the money, and get the operation — assuming they’re given the go ahead by the medical establishment.
Or, barring that, they should join advocacy groups in petitioning insurance companies to cover the surgery.
Alternately, they can move to San Francisco and get a government job.
Kosilek, 58, was convicted of strangling his wife in 1990. He claimed he killed her in self-defense after she spilled boiling tea on his genitals.
Robert Kosilek legally changed his name to Michelle in 1993, and has sued the Correction Department twice, arguing that its refusal to allow a sex-change operation violates the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
In 2002, U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled that Kosilek was entitled to medical treatment for gender identity disorder, but stopped short of ordering the surgery. Kosilek sued again in 2005, arguing that the hormone treatments, laser hair removal and psychotherapy she has received since Wolf’s ruling have not relieved her anxiety and depression.
“I would not want to continue existing like this,” Kosilek testified.
Kosilek’s second trial, which began in May 2006, has featured expert testimony from 10 doctors, psychiatrists and psychotherapists. Wolf has not indicated when he will rule.
[…]
The Correction Department has spent about $33,000 on two experts it retained to evaluate Kosilek. Both Cynthia Osborne, a Baltimore psychotherapist, and Chester Schmidt, a psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins University, said Kosilek does not need the surgery. Schmidt’s fee alone was $350 per hour.
Two other doctors retained and paid for by the department’s outside health provider, the University of Massachusetts Correctional Health Program, at a cost of just under $19,000 said they believe the surgery is medically necessary for Kosilek. Two other doctors who work for the health provider agreed with that.
In addition, two psychiatrists who testified for Kosilek recommended the surgery. A Boston law firm representing Kosilek for free paid for those experts but would not disclose the cost.
In Wisconsin, five inmates sued after the Legislature passed a law that bars Correction Department funding for hormone treatments or sex-change surgery. The case is expected to go to trial in October.
Those who argue against allowing the surgery say it could open the floodgates to other inmates who want sex-change operations or other treatments considered elective.
In Massachusetts, 10 inmates have been diagnosed with gender identity disorder and are receiving hormone treatments. Two other inmates besides Kosilek have asked for sex-change surgery.
Corrections officials say their decision to deny the surgery has nothing to do with costs or the politics of crime. They cite the testimony of their experts and Kosilek herself that her feelings of depression have diminished since she began taking hormones.
Former Commissioner Kathleen Dennehy testified that allowing Kosilek to complete the transformation into a woman would present a security problem. Whether she stays in a male prison or is transferred to a female prison, she could become a target for sexual assault, Dennehy testified.
Dennehy also said prison officials cannot be influenced by Kosilek’s talk of suicide.
“The department does not negotiate or respond to threats of harm or suicide in an effort to barter,” she said. “You couldn’t run a prison with that kind of leveraging going on.”
That this discussion is even taking place makes me weep.
If the gender identity disorder was a mitigating factor in the crime, then perhaps you could make the case that psychiatric treatment should be paid for by the state — and this could be strained to include medicinal treatments (hormones) and even, in rare cases, surgery, paid for with taxpayer money.
But in instances where this was NOT the case, what would, in the world of the non-incarcerated, be considered elective surgery should not be paid for with taxpayer dollars, particularly when taxpayers are already footing the bill to keep criminals incarcerated.
And it is simply absurd to suggest that gender identity disorder (GID) is analogous to diabetes or heart disease — and in need of the same kind of aggressive medical treatment. At best, the disorder is onerous and can lead to depression and anxiety (as can, say, poor self image due to obesity or a large nose); at worst, it is a dubious “disorder”, one that many transgendered people reject as stigmatizing (homosexuality, too, was once labeled a psychiatric disorder, recall, marking homosexuals as “sick”), and one that is perhaps too frequently diagnosed.
The disorder itself is defined (DSM-IV) thus: “A strong and persistent identification with the opposite gender. There is a sense of discomfort in their own gender and may feel they were ‘born the wrong sex.’ This has been confused with cross-dressing or Transvestic Fetishism, but all are distinct diagnoses.â€Â
Such a strong and persistent identification with the opposite “gender” (not, notably, the opposite “sex”), coupled with a “discomfort”, is not life-threatening, except in cases where those suffering from the disorder use the discomfort as the pretense or reason for attempts on their own lives.
To argue that a state Department of Corrections should be required to provide inmates with elective surgery on the public dime is profoundly ridiculous; that the argument is receiving a “nuanced” hearing in Boston, however, is not particularly surprising.
Oh, the potential for jokes involving the b-word……..
52,000 for experts?
How about a “hell no” for free from the warden?
$20,000 for the surgery? Shit, I’ll do it for free using my trusty 18″ Homelite.
Ahhhh Taxachusetts. My last family member finally left the Bay State this month. A lot of native Bostonians left precisely because of this crap. That and the fact that you work over half the year for the state, and then you get to pay federal taxes. This story comes as no surprise to those of us who grew up there. Boston was ready to give taxpayer funds to build the largest mosque on the eastern seaboard until someone reminded the legislature of the 1st amendment. It’s sad that the birthplace of our revolution against an oppressive monarchy has turned in to a progressive nightmare.
I left because I was sick of the winters and the chicks are smokin’ here in Nashville.
That and pie.
It’s a lot cheaper just to tuck your junk between your legs and prance around your cell with your chest thrust forward. Serioudly. Saved me and the state a bundle!
I’ll bet Paris Hilton is kicking herself for not getting those little spots of cellulite taken care of while in the joint. Oh, I’m sorry….having her Cellulite Anxiety Disorder treated.
If it’s that tough on you, Michelle, I’ll be glad to donate 15′ of rope. Just let me make sure Paris isn’t going to use it, and it’s all yours.
If only that tea was a few degrees hotter.
I had to laugh at this:
Representing him/her for free until the firm demands attorney’s fees from the state under 42 U.S.C. 1988.
In all seriousness, though, I’m interested in hearing from some on the advocacy side.
The one thing I miss about the academy is that I could actually get in a discussion about this stuff with people whose opinions differed from mine, provided we were already friends first. Met a LOT of those kinds of people in grad school and at the School of Crit and Theory, where I think one of the seminars, the first year I attended, had to do with such things (Joan Scott / Jaqueline Rose? I can’t remember).
GID sounds suspiciously like Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) and that other one where you are obsessed with cutting off an arm or leg or foot because you are sure it is ruining your life.
If the guy was demanding that he be allowed to amputate his arm and get a prosthetic (seriously, these people badly want to have prosthetics over the organic limb), would ANY self-respecting surgeon comply with that wish?
The problem is not with the guy’s body, its with his perception of it. Load him up with SSRIs and get him some shrink help, if they must but elective surgery? For a lifer? What the Sam Hill for? So he can be pretty for the other inmates?
The wardens are right: this would be a nightmare for them, and since they’re the ones who bodily put themselves in harm’s way, they get to make the call.
Ya know (being all serious here), this is the kind of stuff that resonates among average people.
Most of the stuff we argue about here is inside baseball to the majority of people in meatspace, who find politics and social policy tedious crap that should be left to the eggheads, the nerdlingers, and the high-falutin’s.
But then they hear about stuff like this, and realize that yes, large segments of the government have completely lost any common sense whatsoever, and think nothing of pissing away taxpayer dollars.
It’s similar, I think, to the just-failed amnesty bill. It ticked off people’s bullshit meters, and they responded with vigor.
Now, can someone come along with a genuine populist riff to take advantage of this anger? (The word “genuine” rules out My Silky Pony, obviously.) That will be the test of who takes the next electoral cycle. Not their party affiliation, as the public is fed up with the lot of them – who sounds like the most sensible, least condescending (sorry Hilary) government asshole.
The LGBTs really should take a vote on whether or not the Ts shouldn’t jump out there and start their own club. There are real questions here about taxonomy I think.
I imagine merely being in prison is enough to make one suicidal. Should we care whether the cause of one’s suicidal thoughts is that they are incarcerated or due to a gender identification disorder?
Not to be too far off topic here but, should this surgery be performed at the expense of taxpayers, where the hell will Michelle be put up?
“Such a strong and persistent identification with the opposite “gender†(not, notably, the opposite “sexâ€Â), coupled with a “discomfortâ€Â, is not life-threatening, except in cases where those suffering from the disorder use the discomfort as the pretense…”
…to raise cash for your presidential campaign by having your wife start a bitch fight on some barely-watched cable show with an assist from the show’s host who may or may not squat when he pees.
There. I said it.
[…] at Protein Wisdom takes us on a journey to Massachusetts where the lawyers are busy trying to figure out any possible […]
It’s one thing if it’s an actual medical condition — hormonal changes, for example — but that’s something that can be found with some tests. If it’s “just” a mental health matter, well, tough. Someone living on the state’s dime shouldn’t be entitled to medical care you can’t get insurance to pay for.
And convicts, frankly, should be thankful we provide routine medical care and not just emergency care.
The death penalty, swiftly applied, would have rendered all this moot. Of course, we can’t do that. He only strangled his wife. I guess the rest of his life for the rest of hers would be unfair.
I’ll take a stab at Devil’s Advocate: 1) Geneder Dysphoria is a serious and recognized condition. 2) While in prison, the state is responsible for providing health care to the prisoner, and 2a) While in prison, the prisoner has no recourse to outside physicians and lacks the ability to get a job with which to make money to pay for the procedure.
That’s pretty much all I got. My own opinion? Too damn bad.
“In all seriousness, though, I’m interested in hearing from some on the advocacy side.”
Doubt any of our regular trolls have got their talking points on one this obscure. Some of them probably aren’t old enough.
You know, though, since he would have to stay in the mens facility, you could set him up his own little room, something with alot of red and purple velvet, and probably make your money back in no time at all. Might be nice if some of these fuckers actually paid their way through the joint.
You know, though, since he would have to stay in the mens facility, you could set him up his own little room, something with alot of red and purple velvet, and probably make your money back in no time at all.
[lisp]Oh no he didn’t[/lisp]
Ya know, if we hanged convicted killers this kind of question wouldn’t come up at all…
Of course, we don’t know if this particular convicted killer is hung or not.
Now you’ve done it, Goldstein! Seared into my brain is the image of a chorus line of cigar-chomping, five-o’clock-shadowed, gang-tattooed cons wearing tutus and singing “I Enjoy Being A Girl”!
I’ll be up all night.
How timely. Comedy Central is airing, right now, the South Park episode where Mr. Garrison has a sex change.
I cannot believe that they cut to actual close-up footage of just such a surgery!!
Ewww!
I swear. Make ‘Michelle’ watch that. He’ll change his mind.
“Ya know, if we hanged convicted killers this kind of question wouldn’t come up at all…”
They are tired of being hung, GMG, that is the problem.
How big a rack can he get with just the hormones? Didn’t Richard Speck go down the same road?
Anybody else notice the irony?
And now, essentially, he wants the state to pay to basically snip off that over which he was supposedly defending his life.
Had he not wrung he missus’ neck, perhaps she could have been persuaded to do it for free, and the Massholes would be spared this mess.
Damn, I’m crass.
You’d think his time in prison would have made him woman enough.
Plus, my humble opinion is the “need” to be transgendered is a significant mental disorder- whether God made you or a big honking explosiion made you, you’re a dude. Period.
“But I should be a woman!”
“Tough shit.”
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