The Crying Game / TRANSGENDER DISCUSSION

[Cutz]

There's a solid difference between diabetes and GID. Diabetes can be treated with diet and exercise, but can only be regulated with insulin. The results of diabetes not being treated can be death. Can't jump straight to the only treatment for gender dysphoria being hormones and a sex change op. They do make meds for "continued pain, depression and anxiety." A Benzo a day will keep your sex change away... as they always say.

I'm all for letting her grow her hair out, the name change, the attire, all the cosmetic stuff. Sex change and hormones don't need to go on the government tab.

[blueberryhill]

hmm....well, I thought that you lose most of your rights when you go to prison! If this was life or death situation, o.k. with treatment. I say let her dress as a female, grow hair long, provide razors, etc. but nothing that taxpayers have to pay for. Enough is enough for heaven's sake...she is in prison....

[HairOfTheDog]

I agree that anti-depressants as the sole solution wouldn't fly; that would simply be treating the symptom of an untreated condition. I don't think a government-funded sex change operation will fly either. I do think all of the cosmetic requests will be allowed, and probably the hormone therapy and some psychotherapy.

Manning's suit states: "I requested that the military provide me with a treatment plan consistent with the recognized professional standards of care for trans [gender] health."

Did a little research tonight regarding the standards of care, and to see if there was any federal policy or precedent; interesting.

Here are the recognized standards for those diagnosed with gender dysphoria:
-Changes in gender expression and role (which may involve living part time or full time in another gender role, consistent with one’s gender identity);
-Hormone therapy to feminize or masculinize the body
-Surgery to change primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (e.g., breasts/chest, external and/or internal genitalia, facial features, body contouring);
-Psychotherapy addressing the negative impact of gender dysphoria and stigma on mental health; alleviating internalized transphobia; enhancing social and peer support;improving body image; or promoting resilience.
Source: http://www.wpath.org/uploaded_files/140/...20Book.pdf
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According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons 2014 legal guidelines, inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria "will receive a proposed treatment plan to promote the physical and mental stability of the patient.'' The treatment plan may include elements or services that were, or were not, provided prior to incarceration. Treatment plans will be reviewed regularly and updated as necessary … and hormone therapy may be a consideration.'
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/natio...t/9079325/
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The VA pays for transgender health care, including hormone therapy and psychotherapy (they don't pay for reassignment surgery). Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/natio...t/9079325/
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The Pentagon discharges troops who identify as transgender, and the military offers no treatment or counseling for men or women transitioning to the opposite gender. The military regards them as having a medical condition that disqualifies them from service.
Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014...er-troops/
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So -- as I understand it -- as an active member of the military, Manning wouldn't qualify for recognized transgender health care and would be discharged. BUT, as a convicted spy, he does qualify.

Anyway, will be interesting to see the Obama administration's official reply to the suit.

[username]

Shesus. I suppose forcing him to do anything that doesn't address his diagnosis would be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

I'm all for cruel and unusual punishment in a lot of cases. Next up...transgender prisons.

*rolls eyes, falls over backwards, hits head on bedpost, sleeps til morning*

G'night y'all.

[HairOfTheDog]

Shesus. I suppose forcing him to do anything that doesn't address his diagnosis would be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

I'm all for cruel and unusual punishment in a lot of cases. Next up...transgender prisons.

Well, I haven't heard anything about transgender prisons YET, but...

Chelsea Manning's sex change operation was approved to be footed by the tax payers.

And, today, a federal judge is forcing the California Corrections Dept to foot the bill for a sex change for this murderer:



U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco ruled that denying the surgery to 51-year-old Michelle-Lael Norsworthy violates her constitutional rights. Her birth name is Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy.

The ruling marks just the second time nationwide that a judge has issued an injunction directing a state prison system to provide the surgery.

The previous order in a Massachusetts case was overturned last year and is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In his ruling in California, Tigar cited testimony that the surgery has actually been performed just once on an inmate, an apparent reference to a person who castrated himself in Texas then was given the surgery out of necessity.

Norsworthy, who was convicted of murder, has lived as a woman since the 1990s and has what Tigar termed severe gender dysphoria - a condition that occurs when people's gender at birth is contrary to the way they identify themselves.

"The weight of the evidence demonstrates that for Norsworthy, the only adequate medical treatment for her gender dysphoria is SRS," Tigar wrote, referring to sex reassignment surgery.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me...story.html
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I hope the CA Corrections Dept appeals and this decision gets overturned.

Treat the murderer's condition with meds and therapy -- fine, same as for mentally ill or physically ill prisoners.

But, Jesus Christ, I think gender reassignment therapy is going way too far.

How many upstanding citizens who never murdered anybody would love to be able to afford hormone therapy, counseling, etc...much less sex reassignment surgery? More than a few, that's for sure. Forcing the state to carry out and foot the bill for this sex change is like rewarding Norsworthy for murder, IMO. It's bullshit.

[Duchess]

Yeah! What she said!

That's bullshit that taxpayers should have to pay for that. Goddamn.

[Clang McFly]

Yeah bullshit...

Time for some Clang style crime bungling...

[HairOfTheDog]

Yeah! What she said!

That's bullshit that taxpayers should have to pay for that. Goddamn.

I just did a little checking and it turns out that a good number of health insurance providers now cover sex reassignment surgery based on "medical need".

I just don't see how it can be a medical need all of a sudden; he's been in the slammer for 25 years already. He's not on death's door or anything.

Anyway, I think the judge's ruling is bullshit in this case, but I'm not too confident that the decision will be overturned if it's appealed.

[Maggot]

What kind of cake does that celebration require?

[FAHQTOO]

What kind of cake does that celebration require?

[HairOfTheDog]

What kind of cake does that celebration require?

One with a file in it?

Seriously, it blows my mind that a federal judge has ordered the state of California to provide and pay for a sex change operation for a 50 year old incarcerated murderer.

Strange days...

[Jimbone]

For real, how can this even happen? There is never a 'medical need' for gender reassignment. It's gotta always be considered elective surgery, RIGHT? It's all bullshit that someone claims they are born 'emotionally' the opposite sex. All it means in that your gay or a lesbian, and you're not comfortable with it. Come to think of it, the LGBT movement should only be LGB. The transexuals are bullshitters that have glommed onto the movement.

What's coming next is going to be species assignment. You watch. "Your Honor, my client was born an iguana. It is cruel and unusual for the state to not pay for his skin treatments and tongue augmentation.".

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, I don't doubt that it's gotta really suck to naturally identify oneself as the opposite sex from childhood and I acknowledge that Gender Dysphoria exists. As I understand it, life can be miserable and if left untreated, some people afflicted with it will resort to killing themselves. It's a recognized medical diagnosis and treatment for it is covered by many health insurance companies now. None of which is a problem, for me, and I don't worry that recognizing it and surgically treating it will lead to claims of species dysphoria.

But, requiring state corrections facilities to treat it with costly sex change operations, transition therapy, and then likely having to transfer the transitioned criminals to female prisons is too much for me. It's more extensive care than most non-criminals can expect and the California prisoner in this case is a damned murderer, after all.

I just saw this notice from the Justice Department, released earlier today. I don't think it's a coincidence that the federal judge ruled the way he did in the California case considering this new federal mandate. Appealing the judge's decision would probably be useless at this point.

Justice Department Files Brief to Address Health Care for Prisoners Suffering from Gender Dysphoria -- April 3, 2015
The Department of Justice filed a statement of interest today in the Middle District of Georgia in Diamond v. Owens, et al. The plaintiff in that case, a transgender prisoner, alleges that the Georgia Department of Corrections failed to provide adequate care for her gender dysphoria. The statement of interest discusses the unconstitutionality of “freeze-frame” policies, such as the policy allegedly used in the Georgia Department of Corrections. These policies unconstitutionally prohibit treatment beyond the type of care the prisoner received in the community prior to incarceration. Through this filing, without taking a position on the merits of the allegations, the United States stated that the Eighth Amendment mandates individualized assessment and care for gender dysphoria. More: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-de...-dysphoria

[Jimbone]

I think gender dysphoria is the DSM manual advisors gone crazy. And the fact that there are any insurers out there covering this is probably more likely due to special interest pressure than medical need.

Of course the above is all just baseless and wild speculation. The truth is out there... .

[sally]

Pugnacious as always.

I think gender dysphoria in some cases are real, but I don't think it is something that needs to be catered to in prison. They don't give heroin addicts methadone in prison, and that's real physical pain, why should they have to sport sex changes. It's prison for Christ's sake, not Studio 54.

[aussiefriend]

Methadone is a medication Sal. It would be under supervision, and it is a human right to be given access to basic medical care.

[Donovan]

I'm a little surprised at the level of intolerance in this thread.

[HairOfTheDog]

I'm a little surprised at the level of intolerance in this thread.

In terms of the OP responses, the opinions regarding gender dysphoria, the thoughts about prisoners' entitlements...?

What do you think about the federal court ordering $100,000 outpatient surgery and years of costly specialized therapy for a convicted incarcerated murderer with a non-terminal condition, Donovan?

[Donovan]

I'm speaking more to the level of disdain for gender identity. The insistence on calling her "him", the notion that the gender identification is simply confusion or misplaced homosexuality...

I can't speak to the crime she committed and frankly, I think we all know being in prison for murder doesn't necessarily imply guilt any more than being acquitted of murder means you didn't do it. As we speak there's a murderer/thug/all around bad guy with a good chance of going completely free based on the fact that he's really good at running in short bursts while carrying a football.

But to your point:

In terms of the OP, the opinions regarding gender dysphoria,

Human beings start life in utero as gender nonspecific, and chromosomes decide what parts develop and what parts don't. Prior to that stage, the genitals are identical. Since the universe is a fickle bitch, and we see people born with all sorts of aberrant body variations in hair, skin, facial shape, body shape, etc, who am I to say the brain can't be born hardwired in a way that doesn't fit the specs of the body that came with it? I identify as male. But my penis is not my identity.

the thoughts about prisoners' entitlements...?

I suppose that depends on why we have prisoners to begin with, and it's a much bigger question than this one case. As a society we must decide what our intent is with those of us who cannot behave. Do we mean to punish? Remove? or rehabilitate? If our intent is to punish or remove, then why pretend to be humane at all? Why not simply chain them to a wall and leave them there to rot? Why feed them, which costs money, or house them, or guard them, or provide them exercise and distraction? The average cost to maintain a single prisoner ranges from 20k to 60k a year, with variations. That's baseline. Chains are cheap. Bullets are cheaper. If we decide these murderers are of no value then why pretend?

If we intend to rehabilitate then the expense is warranted as part of our prison system. If we determine that our goal is to produce viable members of society then the expense is considered part of that cost. Otherwise we should simply shoot all of them and stop wasting our time.

What do you think about the federal court ordering $100,000 outpatient surgery and years of costly specialized therapy for a convicted incarcerated murderer with a non-terminal condition, Donovan?

Without knowing the specifics of the case I would be hesitant to comment. See above for my general thoughts on the matter. But if I were the judge considering the case I'd consider: the likelihood of a repeat offense, the effect of reassignment, the nature of the original crime ( there are lots of different ways to wind up a murderer that don't involve anything more than poor decision making and horrible luck) and the reality of whether the person will ever be free. For a death row inmate? No. For a person paying the price for a horrible mistake. Possibly. There are lots of people in this world who, either fairly or unfairly, are getting a better shake from the system than I am with free goods and services. If I spent my time being angry and jealous at all of them I'd go mad.

Bottom line is, the current influx of "legalizations" shines a light on the idiosyncracies and blatant contradictions in our "humane" prison system. There are people currently serving life sentences for selling and growing marijuana, while others are getting rich legally doing the same thing. There are people alive today attending gay weddings between different races who remember when both were against the law and punishable by prison. I'm not trying to say that murder ought to be legal or that this person didn't commit a crime. Just that there are no black/white answers and especially not in the prison infrastructure.

[HairOfTheDog]

California corrections officials argued in court that ^ Norsworthy has been receiving adequate medical care for years -- including counseling and hormone therapy. Corrections officials are concerned about what happens next if they are mandated to facilitate the sex change operation.

Snip:
In 1987, Norsworthy was convicted of murder and sentenced to life behind bars. She is now being held at an all-male prison called Mule Creek State Prison, some 40 miles from Sacramento. Officials have argued that if she has the surgery, keeping her in that facility — or any men’s prison — could put her at risk for sexual assault. Moving her to a women’s prison, they said, could put her or other inmates at risk because she has a history of domestic violence.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morni...ex-change/
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It's very odd that I couldn't find any details about the murder that Norsworthy was convicted of committing; not anywhere. I finally found this in an image search.