Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Supreme Court Refuses Kosilek Case: Is That Really a Good Thing?

BY Suzi Chase
May 16th, 2015

https://www.susans.org/2015/05/16/supreme-court-refuses-kosilek-case-really-good-thing/

The Washington Blade reports that on Monday, the U.S. Supreme court declined to hear the case of Michelle Kosilek, an inmate who had sued to have her Sex Reassignment Surgery covered by the state of Massachusetts as a medically necessary procedure.

Michelle is serving a life sentence and is required by U.S. law to have her medical care provided by the prison system. According the Blade, she had mutilated herself and twice attempted suicide without the surgery. An appeals court had previously ruled that she is not entitled to the procedure. The basis of that decision was that current medical standards do not mandate such a procedure and that the court should not overrule medical practice.

The Supreme Court's denial leaves Kosilek without legal options.

I find it appalling that any trans person could think this is a good thing. We are all engaged in the struggle to have our treatment recognized as medically necessary, and this could set that process back years.

Quote from: The referenced articleOn this forum, one transgender woman said, "No convicted felon should get a free SRS unless it is also free to all law-abiding transsexual citizens of this country." "It should not be available to anybody at tax payer's expense unless it is under a medical insurance program for which the recipient has paid premiums," said another.

It's beyond me that people can be so selfish, so judgmental, and so ignorant about where their true self-interest lies. If the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Ms. Kosilek, it would have been a huge step toward establishing that gender-affirming medical treatment is a necessity, and that would have benefited us all, especially those of us who, through no fault of our own, are not and never will be able to pay for our treatment out of our own pockets.