Transgender Texas prison inmates can start hormone therapy – LGBTQ Nation

Seriously. "Advocates welcomed the policy change, but raised concerns that the TDCJ process is onerous enough that transgender inmates could have to wait months, even years, to receive treatment."

I'm going to be a class-A asshole.  They are in fucking prison and I have a very harsh view on what prison  should be like.  It ain't like what it is, although I do advocate for job training and education (and no, I don't believe in the death penalty except in extreme, rare cases.)

My gut reaction aside, I am not transgender and I have no clue as to what these inmates face or faced prior to incarceration.  If this is as "conservative" a process as the article states, I am not sure as to what issues may be faced.  Such a learning curve.

A change in Texas prison system policy means transgender inmates who hadn’t started hormone therapy before incarceration can do so behind bars if they go through a thorough process to confirm the diagnosis.

Previously, Texas Department of Criminal Justice policy said only transgender inmates who were already taking hormones when they entered the system could continue to do so, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday.

TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark played down the change, saying Texas’ policy remained among the most conservative in the nation.

“Offenders are prescribed hormone therapy only after going through a rigorous process that includes being reviewed by a gender dysphoria specialist, an endocrinologist, and having an affirmative diagnosis,” Clark said. “Only then would it be considered medically necessary and require the minimum level of treatment which is hormone therapy.”

Transgender Texas prison inmates can start hormone therapy – LGBTQ Nation

What Does Religion Look Like in Prison? - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

Sorry if I just stabbed you in the back,” Joshua Dubler writes in the closing paragraph of Down in the Chapel. Hugging one of the prisoners whose religious faith his book chronicles, Dubler forgot to cap his pen.

The apology is a joke, but uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has labored to tell the stories of others, especially a group so disenfranchised as the prisoners at Pennsylvania’s largest maximum security prison. Joshua Dubler was a graduate student at Princeton when he began visiting Graterford, which is just outside of Philadelphia. His research at the prison, sanctioned by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and conducted over six years, included meticulously observing the life of its chapel for years and repeatedly interviewing some of its 3,500 residents.

Down in the Chapel, published last year, is an adapted version of Dubler’s dissertation, a record of one particular week in the life of the chapel, along with 10 broader theses about religious life at the prison. Dubler’s voice is rarely absent from Down in the Chapel, but it blends with many others: a Catholic convert who has studied Greek and Hebrew for seven years since being sentenced to life for murder; an atheist who works as the chapel janitor and thinks more about the philosophy of religion than most seminarians; Cherokee and Lakota prisoners who come together for smudging ceremonies and prayer circles; the rabbi, imam, Catholic priest, Lutheran pastor, and former guerrilla warrior in Sierra Leone’s civil war turned reverend who serve as chaplains; a lazy-eyed Wiccan who wears a silver pentagram but refuses to practice anywhere but his cell; and the many corrections officers, some callous and some caring, who staff the prison.

[,,,]
Down in the Chapel is most interesting when it focuses on the thoughts, questions, concerns, and beliefs of the prisoners themselves. These are the voices we long to hear, the perspectives we realize are missing from our own considerations of religion. Eavesdropping on these conversations is the real gift offered by Dubler’s book.

What Does Religion Look Like in Prison? - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

Court rules state should pay for sex change of transgender prisoner | Al Jazeera America

This is another story I have been sitting on and pondering. My initial reaction was, hell no. Not due to any bias or bigotry, but due to the fact that she is in prison, for life. She killed her wife for god sake and in my mind when you enter prison, your rights to a "normal" life ends when you walk in the door. I'm not saying she does have basic rights to be treated humanly - food, shelter, protection from having the shit kicked out of her - but surgery of this sort, no.

But that thinking just wasn't sitting right with me and I couldn't put my finger on it till I read the following comment:

It upsets me that many people seem to think that mental health issues are not medical issues. If something can be fixed by medical care, then it sure seems to be a medical issue to me. Psychiatrists attend med school. They are authorized to issue prescriptions.

Certainly not every person with GID in prison gets a sex change. In this particular case, a team full of doctors signed a statement indicating that her reassignment surgery was necessary medical care. I choose to trust their appraisal over my own. Even by my own lights, the news indicates that she has tried to castrate herself and hang herself twice. She didn't threaten - she actually tried to, and had to be restrained. It seems that being unable to identify with her body poses a serious threat to her life. The state is obligated to protect its inmates. We do not let prisoners kill themselves; they are there to serve a sentence, not to take the easy way out.  [Emphasis mine]

Decades of research indicates that GID cannot be fixed by counseling, personal growth, etc. It is a real medical problem. People with GID have differing brain structures and their bodies respond differently to androgens compared to people without GID. It is a genetic, heritable condition.

A Massachusetts prisoner suffering from gender identity disorder should be provided a sex-change operation paid for by the state's prison system, according to a federal appeals court decision issued on Friday.

The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, in a ruling by a panel of three judges, said it agreed with a lower court ruling from 2012 that the Massachusetts Department of Corrections was obligated to provide the surgery as treatment for the inmate, who is serving a life sentence for murder.

"Having carefully considered the relevant law and the extensive factual record, we affirm the judgment of the district court," Judge Rogeriee Thompson wrote for the court.

The 63-year-old inmate, who legally changed her name to Michelle Kosilek from Robert Kosilek, sued the Department of Corrections more than a decade ago trying to force it to pay for gender reassignment surgery.

Kosilek was convicted in 1992 of murdering her wife, a counselor she had met while she was in drug rehabilitation, after she caught Kosilek wearing her clothes.

___
**From my understanding, the state has actually spent more money fighting this case than what the surgery itself would cost.  And it is important to note that Kosilek had issues with GID prior to being incarcerated.

Court rules state should pay for sex change of transgender prisoner | Al Jazeera America