Source: nationalreview.com<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a convicted murderer\u2019s appeal to receive gender\u00a0reassignment surgery, leaving in place a lower court\u2019s ruling in favor of the Texas prison officials who refused the inmate the procedure.<\/p>\n
The court rejected the appeal of a\u00a0Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling by transgender inmate Vanessa Lynn Gibson, formerly known as Scott Gibson, who claimed the prison\u2019s refusal to grant the surgery violates the\u00a0Constitution\u2019s Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n
Gibson, 41, who was born male but has lived as a woman since age 15, was convicted and sent to prison for aggravated assault in 1995 and two years later convicted of murdering another inmate.<\/p>\n
The inmate, who is eligible for parole in 2021, has engaged in self-harm and has attempted suicide three times, stemming in part from gender dysphoria, which Gibson was diagnosed with in 2014.<\/p>\n
Gibson was provided with hormone therapy but denied a request to be considered for gender reassignment surgery. Lawyers for Gibson argued in court filings that the gender dysphoria, which causes their client to feel like a woman trapped in a man\u2019s body, is life-threatening in this case. However, Texas does not have a policy governing \u201cirreversible surgical intervention\u201d for inmates, the state said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA state does not inflict cruel and unusual punishment by declining to provide sex reassignment surgery to a transgender inmate,\u201d Judge James Ho\u00a0said\u00a0in the Fifth Circuit\u2019s decision, adding that \u201cthe necessity and efficacy of sex reassignment surgery is a matter of significant disagreement within the medical community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ho also noted \u201cno other prison has ever provided\u201d gender reassignment surgery.<\/p>\n
Democratic presidential candidates including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and former 2020 candidate Senator Kamala Harris have\u00a0advocated\u00a0for spending taxpayer dollars on sex-reassignment surgery for prison inmates.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court did not comment on its decision not to consider the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[434,984,166],"class_list":["post-3368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sex-reassignment","tag-sex-reassignment","tag-supreme-court","tag-surgery"],"yoast_head":"\n