Idaho State Correctional Complex – Photo: Idaho Department of Correction, via Facebook.
A federal court has ordered the Idaho Department of Correction to provide a transgender inmate with medically necessary gender confirmation surgery.
Adree Edmo, a Native American transgender woman who has been in the custody of the Department of Correction since 2012, sued the department and Corizon LLC, which contracts with the department to provide medical services, after she was denied gender confirmation surgery.
These denials of care continued for several years, even though surgery had been deemed necessary to treat her gender dysphoria.
Corizon has faced allegations in other states for refusing to provide medically necessary care to transgender inmates. In Missouri, inmate Jessica Hicklin sued after she was denied hormone therapy under a “freeze-frame” policy that only allows those transgender people who had been receiving medical care for gender dysphoria prior to their incarceration to continue receiving it while serving their sentences.
Edmo’s lawyers, with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, asked for a preliminary injunction to prevent the Department of Correction and Corizon from blocking Edmo from receiving gender confirmation surgery. On Friday, Chief U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill issued that injunction.
“Ms. Edmo’s case satisfies both elements of the deliberate indifference test. She has presented extensive evidence that, despite years of hormone therapy, she continues to experience gender dysphoria so significant that she cuts herself to relieve emotional pain,” Winmill wrote in his order issuing the injunction. “She also continues to experience thoughts of self-castration and is at serious risk of acting on that impulse.
“With full awareness of Ms. Edmo’s circumstances, IDOC and its medical provider Corizon refuse to provide Ms. Edmo with gender confirmation surgery. In refusing to provide that surgery, IDOC and Corizon have ignored generally accepted medical standards for the treatment of gender dysphoria,” Winmill added. “This constitutes deliberate indifference to Ms. Edmo’s serious medical needs and violates her rights under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
But Winmill also noted that the decision was based solely on the particular details of Edmo’s case and did not necessarily apply to all inmates suffering from gender dysphoria who have sought out gender confirmation surgery.
Nonetheless, Edmo and her lawyers declared victory.
“I am relieved and grateful that the court validated my right to necessary medical treatment,” Edmo said in a statement. “Not having the care I need is like being in a prison within a prison. Even though I am still living, it has felt like I have been dying inside.”
“Healthcare providers have known for decades how to provide effective and life-saving medical care to transgender people,” Lori Rifkin, lead attorney for Edmo, and a partner at the civil rights law firm Hadsell Stormer & Renick. “Our laws require the state officials running prisons to provide necessary health treatment to the people in their care. Instead, Corizon and IDOC put Ms. Edmo’s life at risk.”
“As the Court recognized, it is a bedrock principle of our legal system that Constitutional protections apply to all individuals, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity,” NCLR Senior Staff Attorney Amy Whelan added. “Intentionally depriving anyone of the critical medical care they need is unacceptable. Idahoans and every American deserves better.”
A man accused of committing a mass shooting at a bar and a bowling alley in Maine reportedly "liked" a number of social media posts from right-wing figures and influencers, including several anti-transgender posts.
Maine State Police are currently searching for a "person of interest" in the shooting, identified as 40-year-old Robert Card, a firearms instructor and member of the U.S. Army from Bowdoin, Maine. They describe him as "armed and dangerous."
Card allegedly shot up Schemengees Bar and Grille and Sparetime Recreation bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday evening, killing at least 18 people and injuring 13 others, according to The Associated Press.
A federal appeals court blocked an Idaho law that prohibits transgender individuals from using restroom facilities that match their gender identity.
The law, which Gov. Brad Little signed in March, prohibits any student from entering a restroom not designated for their assigned sex at birth.
The law defines sex based on "the immutable biological and physiological characteristics, specifically the chromosomes and internal and external reproductive anatomy" of a person.
Under the law, any cisgender student who encounters a transgender individual in the "wrong" restroom may file a civil lawsuit against the school for damages as high as $5,000 per incident.
Two transgender boys filed a federal lawsuit seeking to reverse the University of Missouri Health System's (MU Health Care) decision to stop providing gender-affirming care in response to a ban passed earlier this year.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, challenges the hospital's decision, announced in August, to stop prescribing hormones and puberty blockers to minors suffering from gender dysphoria due to fears of "significant legal liability," reports the Kansas City Star.
MU Health Care made the decision in response to legislation, passed by Republican lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson, that threatens to yank doctors' licenses to practice if they provide transition-related treatments to minors. It also allows former patients who underwent transition-related treatments but later experienced regret to sue their former medical providers for up to 15 years after they turn 21.
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