TG Prison News Revisited
After discussing with my partner, who is a second year law student, I have changed my mind on the issue in favor of Kosilek, mainly for legal reasons. No, I don't find her to be a good poster-child for the trans community, nor do I agree with the actions she took against her wife. However, that is in NO WAY a part of her lawsuit. I know it's hard to separate her crime from her petition. I was glad that the CNN article only wrote one or two lines about her offense, although for the article to have remained unbiased, it shouldn't have included it at all. Information about her crime only creates bias against her. The fact of the matter remains that not siding with Kosilek only hurts the transgender cause. We don't have to like her as a person, but we have to agree on one thing: We believe that sex change surgery is a medical necessity for transgender individuals.
My biggest complaint, as I stated before, is that she would be getting surgery handed to her when free citizens, such as myself, have to pay out of pocket. Again, that is neither here nor there. Inmates get all medical expenses that are deemed necessary provided for them, anyway. For example, if an inmate had to have an appendix removed or any other serious medical condition, that would be paid for by the government. To leave them without medical care is unconstitutional see for example, Church v. Hegstrom, 416 F.2d 449 (C.A. Conn. 1969). We may disagree with the system, but that is how it works. To say that she should not get the operation is to say that the surgery is unessential, therefore, considered elective surgery. This is exactly what health care providers have been telling the rest of us, and we have been arguing against. No, we don't have to like Kosilek, but we should provide her with the same healthcare we demand for ourselves. Kosilek's case, as presented by Lamda Legal (if you don't like Kosilek, you have to like Lamda Legal for all that they do to help our community), boils down to this: To force Kosilek to live in a male body is the United States acting against its prisoners in a cruel & unusual way. While no one likes criminals, the U.S. has already decided that we shouldn't treat them cruelly and unusually, and that we should afford them with medically essential healthcare. Kosilek shouldn't be additionally punished just for being transgender; most murderers are sentenced to life in prison, but Kosilek has been sentenced to life in the wrong body.
Being against Kosilek means keeping the status quo; that is to say, agreeing with healthcare providers that sex change surgery is unnecessary. However, if the court sides in favor of Kosilek, it could change the healthcare system for the rest of us. We would have legal precedent stating that sex change surgery is medically necessary. Therefore, we could potentially force healthcare providers to start covering sex change surgery in the future. This is how progress is made. If we can somehow separate our emotions from the legal stake at hand, then we can focus on what really matters--propelling transgender rights forward in healthcare provision.
Also, the argument that a great number of inmates will get SRS just because it's free should not prevent them from receiving treatment (Cindy calls it the "floodgates argument"). The rights of transgender individuals should not be overruled by a few who might try to abuse the system. This is the same for any government-sponsored program. It's equivalent to saying a poor, single mother pops out babies just to receive a bigger welfare check. I know I posted this worry before, but honestly, I think I was feeling biased against the criminal when I wrote it. After taking time to look at it from a different perspective (as I've just written above), I believe it's a straw-man argument.
My biggest complaint, as I stated before, is that she would be getting surgery handed to her when free citizens, such as myself, have to pay out of pocket. Again, that is neither here nor there. Inmates get all medical expenses that are deemed necessary provided for them, anyway. For example, if an inmate had to have an appendix removed or any other serious medical condition, that would be paid for by the government. To leave them without medical care is unconstitutional see for example, Church v. Hegstrom, 416 F.2d 449 (C.A. Conn. 1969). We may disagree with the system, but that is how it works. To say that she should not get the operation is to say that the surgery is unessential, therefore, considered elective surgery. This is exactly what health care providers have been telling the rest of us, and we have been arguing against. No, we don't have to like Kosilek, but we should provide her with the same healthcare we demand for ourselves. Kosilek's case, as presented by Lamda Legal (if you don't like Kosilek, you have to like Lamda Legal for all that they do to help our community), boils down to this: To force Kosilek to live in a male body is the United States acting against its prisoners in a cruel & unusual way. While no one likes criminals, the U.S. has already decided that we shouldn't treat them cruelly and unusually, and that we should afford them with medically essential healthcare. Kosilek shouldn't be additionally punished just for being transgender; most murderers are sentenced to life in prison, but Kosilek has been sentenced to life in the wrong body.
Being against Kosilek means keeping the status quo; that is to say, agreeing with healthcare providers that sex change surgery is unnecessary. However, if the court sides in favor of Kosilek, it could change the healthcare system for the rest of us. We would have legal precedent stating that sex change surgery is medically necessary. Therefore, we could potentially force healthcare providers to start covering sex change surgery in the future. This is how progress is made. If we can somehow separate our emotions from the legal stake at hand, then we can focus on what really matters--propelling transgender rights forward in healthcare provision.
Also, the argument that a great number of inmates will get SRS just because it's free should not prevent them from receiving treatment (Cindy calls it the "floodgates argument"). The rights of transgender individuals should not be overruled by a few who might try to abuse the system. This is the same for any government-sponsored program. It's equivalent to saying a poor, single mother pops out babies just to receive a bigger welfare check. I know I posted this worry before, but honestly, I think I was feeling biased against the criminal when I wrote it. After taking time to look at it from a different perspective (as I've just written above), I believe it's a straw-man argument.