The First Circuit Court of Appeals in
Boston on Tuesday overturned a ruling ordering Massachusetts prison
officials to provide gender reassignment surgery to an inmate.
Born Robert, Michelle Kosilek is
serving a life sentence in an all-male prison in Norfolk for the 1990
murder of her wife Cheryl.
A 3-judge panel of the First Circuit
found that the surgery is necessary and that the state violated
Kosilek's constitutional rights by refusing to provide her with the
procedure.
The Massachusetts Department of
Corrections (DOC) appealed the decision to the full court, which on
Tuesday reversed itself in a split 3-2 ruling.
The court said that Kosilek had failed
to demonstrate that denying the surgery was a violation of her
constitutional rights.
Jennifer Levi, director of the
Transgender Rights Project of Gay & Lesbian Advocates &
Defenders (GLAD), which is working as appellate counsel in the case,
said in a statement she was “appalled by the decision.”
“I am appalled by this decision,
which means that Michelle Kosilek will continue to be denied the
life-saving medical care she needs and has been seeking for years,”
Levi said. “It is difficult or impossible to imagine a decision
like this one – that second-guesses every factual determination
made by the trial court – in the context of any other prisoner
health care case. This decision is a testament to how much work
remains to be done to get transgender people's health care needs on
par with others in the general public.”
While in prison, Kosilek has twice
attempted to take her own life and once attempted to castrate
herself.