Posted on 08/24/2006 12:15:45 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Wearing lipstick, a scooped-neck sweater and nearly waist-length hair, the witness cried while describing what it feels like to be a woman trapped inside a man's body.
"The greatest loss is the dying I do inside a little bit every day," said Michelle Kosilek, an inmate who is serving a life sentence for murder.
[snip]
Since then, Kosilek has been fighting for the state Department of Correction to pay for sex-change surgery, which can cost from $10,000 to $20,000. After two lawsuits and two trials, the decision now rests with a federal judge.
[snip]
The case is being closely watched by attorneys and advocates across the country who say Kosilek is an example of the poor treatment transgender inmates receive in prison.
Courts in several other states have ordered prison systems to allow transgender inmates to receive psychotherapy and, in some cases, hormone shots. But no inmate in the country has ever succeeded in getting a court to order a sex-change operation, according to advocates.
"If people are not treated, they suffer tremendously," said Shannon Minter, a board member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute. "It's just as cruel to withhold treatment for gender-identity disorder as it is to withhold treatment for any other medical issue."
Cole Thaler, a transgender-rights attorney for Lambda Legal, a national advocacy group for homosexual, bisexual and transgender people. ..
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Should you go for maiming the body to fit the attitude, or healing the attitude to fit the body?
For $20,000, your body can be made as dysfunctional as your mind. And even then, the disorder isn't cured: you're STILL radically uncomfortable with the sex you were born with!
It's always been thought to be unethical to carve up a healthy, functioning body for no medical reason. Plus unethical to soak the taxpayers for $20,000 worth of therapeutically un-called-for, elective, essentially cosmetic (if you can call it that) surgery.
But ethics? What's ethics in the face of preference?
Paging John Michael Karr...
I'd bet there are some who would do the 'gender reassignment surgery' at no cost to Taxpayers. Lesse: a sharp knife and a white-hot poker for cauterizing. Yep; I volunteer.
On side note I bet he is popular with the other guys in his cell block.....
I'm a few of his fellow inmates would assist if given the proper tools.
Give him a rusty knife.
[snip]
LOL thought that little word was kinda funny considering the article.
So?
Ping, Pong, Or vice-versa.
Just send him to Thailand. The operation only costs about $1,500 US. Maybe he can stay there too. Sounds like a reasonable and inexpensive solution instead of paying to keep him locked up.
Ok if he wants a sex change fine. BUT he doesn't get to go to a hospital and get a doctor to do it on our dime. He has to get Bruno in the prison hospital to do it with some gardening shears, duct tape, and other assorted items. The only anesthetic you get is to bit down on a wooden stick or a little whiskey mabey a damp rag with some industrial cleaner on it thats it. DO you still want the operation??
I thought this article was leading to that. Colorado DOES pay for this for their inmates doncha know.
"the dying I do inside a little bit every day,"
How about the dying you did to someone else on the outside. Stay inside and rot Tinkerbell.
I agree. What is even crueler is to irrevocably mutilate someone rather than give them the psychiatric treatment their mental disorder requires.
I don't get it. He's a woman trapped in a man's body. Surrounded by lots of hunky males. If he's changed, he'll be transferred to a women's facility and be housed with a lot of hunky lesbians....................
No way should the taxpayers have to pony up the money for a free operation for a murderer. Changing his sex is outward change. The man's a murderer. What about his victims--they don't have a choice.
Wonder if this is how the Zodiac killer changed his identity?
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