Convicted murderer Michelle Kosilek has lost the latest round of is-she-or-is-she-not entitled to gender reassignment surgery.
On Tuesday, the full First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a previous ruling stating that the Massachusetts Department of Corrections (DOC) was required to provide Kosilek the surgery that several doctors — including some hired by the DOC itself — have testified is medically necessary.
The Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) reports that Tuesday’s decision was divided, with a 3-2 majority. In her dissent, Circuit Judge Thompson wrote, “I am confident that I would not need to pen this dissent, over twenty years after Kosilek’s quest for constitutionally adequate medical care began, were she not seeking a treatment that many see as strange or immoral. Prejudice and fear of the unfamiliar have undoubtedly played a role in this matter’s protraction.”
In January of this year, the Court of Appeals ruled to uphold the finding of District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf that the DOC was violating Kokilek’s 8th amendment right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment by denying her treatment through “pretense, pretext, and prevarication.”
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After Tuesday’s ruling, Jennifer Levi, director of GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project, said, “There is no scientific or medical basis for denying transgender people their health care needs. The consensus position of the medical community is that surgery may sometimes be essential treatment.”
A disagreement over the essentiality of the surgery seems to be at the heart of this case. In an interview with Boston’s WGBH News, David Zimmerman, publisher of Boston Spirit magazine, who earlier this year ran an interview with Kosilek, 64, stated that “Gender identity disorder is a medical disorder, not a psychological disorder. It’s been categorized as a medical disorder, and the treatment for that medical disorder is gender reassignment surgery.”
Adds James Lopata, Boston Spirit‘s editor in chief, “Medical care is required by the state for prisoners. If she needed a hip replacement, she would get it. If she needed a cancer treatment, she would get it. Why is this transgender issue different?”
Kosilek, who — as Robert Kosilek — had a long history of criminal activity before strangling wife Cheryl McCaul to death in 1990, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Watch the WGBH interview below.
aliengod
Medically necessary? You’ve got to be kidding me. This man murdered his wife and is in prison for life. If he’s a little uncomfortable in his own skin, good! We shouldn’t be using tax dollars to lob off some murderers penis just because he now wants to be a she.
Ladbrook
One could also argue that it’s medically necessary to give him the death penalty for killing his wife. It would certainly make me feel better.
Garrett
@Ladbrook: That’s barbaric. You always seem so angry.
JDJase
The ruling doesn’t prevent her from getting the surgery. It only prevents her from getting TAXPAYER FUNDED surgery.
Raquel Santiago
My biggest issue with this case is the article agbotu GID. Gender Identity disorder was removed from the DSM V because it is NOT a mental illness. As a mental health professional who sees hundreds of clients weekly from both the LGBT and Straight communities that comment alone annoys the very fiver of my gay trans identity and pseudo-science like this insults my intelligence as a mental health clinician and my humanity.
Gender Identity Disorder should ONLY be used when a person is physically harming themselves to be a sex other than the biological one assigned at birth under the gender binary. Such as attempting to cut off their penis to have a vagina or sewing on plastic parts to appear as a penis over a vagina or physically scarring themselves. And even then the diagnosis of GID can be removed and classified as scarification.
Ladbrook
@Garrett: With all due respect, you precious little bleeding-heart snowflake, I am not angry. I just find it reprehensible that a murderer serving life without parole believes that I should be forced to fund the removal of his dick and the purchase of his breasts with my hard-earned tax dollars. Our prison system is very much in need of a complete overhaul, by the way. Corruption is rampant, prisoners are being raped (male and female) by both guards and other prisoners, and some prisoners are so legitimately neglected that they are actually dying while incarcerated for relatively minor offenses. Plus: gang violence, drugs, etc etc etc. And no one seems to care.
Our dollars need to be applied to reform, not to gender reassignment surgeries for depraved men who kill their wives.
Tracy Pope
Other articles about this included the majority ruling. Michelle Kosilek has everything – hormones, clothing, mental therapy, etc – except surgery available to her.
It’s prison, not a spa. Ms. Kosilek is not a kindergarten teacher, she’s a convicted murderer. It seems some would try to muddle the issue by suggesting it’s trans-phobia.
demented
A horrible crime was committed, and the person who did it should not receive free surgery unless it’s something life-threatening. Does anyone here want their tax dineros to go to such a person, a savage murderer? Let her pay for it herself.
And no, I wouldn’t pay for her hip replacement either.
ingyaom
Demented is so right.
sectbrawn
” is-she-or-is-she-not entitled to gender reassignment surgery.”
On the tax payer’s nickel? No. I love the part about it being “medically necessary”. Does petunia need chemotherapy for cancer? how about open heart surgery to open blocked valves? The quacks who deemed it “medically necessary” should have their medical licenses reviewed and possibly revoked.
BJ McFrisky
The only thing better than this lowlife being in prison for life?
He’ll always believe he’s “imprisoned” in his own body.
Goal!
tricky ricky
he murdered his innocent wife and tried to get away with it. cost the state a fortune for the trial. grounds enough for denial.
onthemark
Well, it’s not like she’s going to be doing any online dating.
onthemark
Maybe she can date Dzhokhar Tsarnaev!
An unsupervised date?
gandalf74
Oh I commented on this story on The Advocate’s page. I was called morally bankrupt, and a torturer because I did not believe this person deserved to have the taxpayers pay for the SRS. There was never a mention of the victim or the family of, only that this murderer is “suffering”, and since she is Trans , that the murder is not the issue, nor should be in this case. I was beyond pissed, She murdered someone. If shes suffering by having to keep her penis, well hell I say that is fine. I am sure the victim would love to not have suffered while she was being murdered. I am starting to see where some gay men and women are distancing themselves from Trans issues. Holding up a convicted murderer to be an example , where there are friends of mine who are actual Veterans and Trans and can not get the help they need are not held up. I get sick of being called a bigot and Transphobic because I wont ever think its right to think a convicted murderer, who by the way would be moved to a women’s prison after surgery..can not get it..screw that “everything has to be equal, peace, love and puppies, hippie bullshit talk” that I am hearing from some of our community.
I'm Black, and HIV-Positive.
“Adds James Lopata, Boston Spirit‘s editor in chief, “Medical care is required by the state for prisoners. If she needed a hip replacement, she would get it. If she needed a cancer treatment, she would get it. Why is this transgender issue different?””
Umm. I actually did not get my medical treatment when I was locked up thank you very much. And they never even said that I was positive when I went in.
I tested positive on an independent test that I myself paid for while I was on probation. And then when I violated my probation, and had to go back in to fulfill the rest of my sentence they still didn’t say that I had tested positive for HIV on any bloodwork again.
So that’s twice, and you can’t imagine how ill I fell directly after leaving the system seven years later. And ofcourse I didn’t know if I was infected before, during, or after, so my hospitialization was pretty close to the ten year mark.
Yeah. And so there goes your “they have to give you medical this, that, and the other” bullshit argument. Yeah sure they do, while they’re denying you all of your other rights.
Palto
What an ugly looking guy. He makes Chelsea Manning look like Julia Roberts lol. This POS is lucky he’s not going to the chair.
Zoe Brain
1, Yes, she is prevented from having surgery. She offered to pay for it herself 20 years ago. The theory is, if treatment is necessary, it’s provided free, if not necessary, it’s forbidden.
2. Surgery isn’t always needed in all cases, just as blood transfusions aren’t needed for all cases of traumatic injury. In this case, all the medics agreed it was necessary – except for the religious nutters who say it’s never necessary, just as JWs say that no-one ever needs a blood transfusion.
3. She’s already attempted suicide and auto-castration. It’s no exaggeration to say it’s only the hope of surgery that’s keeping her alive.
4. One of the dissents commented that while it was OK to ignore all medical evidence regarding Trans people like this, he was worried that others would be mistreated too unless the court in future did a lot of fancy legal footwork.
“I suspect that our court will devote some effort in the coming years to distinguishing this case, and eventually reducing it to a one-off reserved only for transgender prisoners.”
gandalf74
@Zoe Brain: Im sure her victim would love to be alive..Its amazing to me people overlook that fact, but shes suffering?…bullshit. Let em suffer..
gandalf74
@BJ McFrisky: “But she’s Trans” you need to ignore that he killed a woman in cold blood, “Shes suffering”..I bet the family of the woman he killed is. We need to hold this up as a example, that we can ignore the actual facts in this case and just do it anyway..I am not getting on your case but this is some of the things I have had said to me. Its nuts..I agree with you on everything..people give us gay people a hard enough time, but lets just make it even harder by holding up a murderer as a symbol. You have men who get the implants and the hormones, but no SRS and say they are a woman now, or vice versa with women who transition, then by law they are now that sex, with all the rights and legalities of any straight person. The average straight citizen is going to say “that is still a woman or a man”, How can we get them to take us seriously. I do think that gender issues are too big , varied and complex and should be outside of ourselves. I am all for rights(and my Trans friends do not disagree with me), that there is a section of us gay men and women who are tried of activists claiming us to be bigots and transphobic and many other way more horrible things I have had said to me , that I will not post here. Then after all that we are still going to support this. I dont think so, we can only take so much
I'm Black, and HIV-Positive.
So, he was a really masculine gay man, as he clearly was fucking women, and he got a woman to marry him, but was really a woman on the inside? I feel like he’s just another white man trying to cheat me out of a relationship with a real hardcore fucker!
Was he a woman all along, or just didn’t realize it until he got in the marriage? Was he a hermaphrodite, or was he completely male in all outward appearances? What are the extenuating circumstances?
I mean, there really are so many questions that aren’t being answered here. Did she say something homophobic to provoke him, or did she taunt him like, “Ha ha, but I know your secret, and I get to be a woman, and you don’t! And praise our homophobic society, because you have to fuck me where you really would want to be with another man all the same, and to be fucked by another man like you have to fuck me! Ha ha, I win!!!” I mean, I just really don’t get it. But I’m not a heartless person. I’m sure there is still a very human side to this situation here that could be stated, but what I’m not hearing it.
And I’m kind of sad to admit that there’s a huge part of me that thinks that these actually shouldn’t be “our” issues in the first place. I mean, I’m all for transsexuals being our allies and all, but he/she was clearly against the idea of even just being a gay man!!!
I'm Black, and HIV-Positive.
I mean, I’m all for transsexuals being our allies and all, but he/she was clearly against the idea of even just being a gay man!!! Does he wish to be a straight woman? I mean, like did she want to be a lesbian? I don’t get it! If these “transsexuals” are really just gay people who are looking for the gateway to being straight then these really aren’t our issues!