OPINION & EDITORIAL
Public funds not for sex changes
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Also by Josh Moskowitz:
- Taser experiments will help save lives (April 7, 2005)
- Planted articles hurt Iraqi democracy (December 14, 2005)
- DeLay's tactics catch up with him, finally (April 15, 2005)
- Iran key concern for Israel (January 26, 2006)
- Journalism out in jeopardy (April 25, 2005)
Related Stories:
- Beware of rapist (February 19, 2007)
- Grin and Barrett (December 12, 2006)
- Drugs will ruin your life (November 22, 2002)
- Rank & file (September 1, 2004)
- A case for prison reform (March 14, 2002)
by Josh Moskowitz
Friday, February 10, 2006
There are countless news articles, institutional studies and governmental reports detailing the lack of funding in our current federal and state prison systems. Crowded institutions, inadequate medical care and violent conditions are problems typically associated with the prison system's absence of resources.
With a majority of the funding coming directly from our pockets, most politicians tend to veer away from even addressing the problem for fear of being designated as big-government proponents. Yet, a Wisconsin law that actively seeks to eliminate useless and excessive spending in its jails and channel it towards more productive outlets has come under unjust legal attack.
In January, Assembly Bill 184 was passed with little-to-no fanfare. The bill mandates that neither state nor federal funds can be used to fund the hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery of prisoners or forensic patients. With the passage of this legislation, Wisconsin inmates currently undergoing hormonal therapy were prevented from continuing their "necessary" treatment.
Almost immediately, the law found its way into the courts. A Wisconsin federal court, struggling with the law's constitutionality, issued an injunction that temporarily invalidated AB 184. The court's main constitutional concern was whether the law was in direct violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which demands that the states apply the law equally and fairly, regardless of a person's race, religion or creed.
This claim lacks substantial validity. Nowhere does the bill discriminate against or malign a criminal's religion or race. Nowhere does the bill place an undue burden on a criminal because of who they are. While some may argue that a prisoner's sexual orientation might be unfairly targeted, the bill does not consider an individual's sexual preference.
Additionally, on Jan. 24, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, challenging the constitutionality of Bill 184. The suit was filed on behalf of four Wisconsin inmates who were receiving hormone therapy prior to the bill's enactment. According to Attorney Larry Dupuis, who is representing the ACLU of Wisconsin, "Prisoners have a constitutional right to reasonable and necessary medical care. If the state provides care that is deliberately different to serious medical needs, that violates the Eighth Amendment … and that's unconstitutional."
In essence, the ACLU is arguing that a discontinuation of these hormonal treatments is a form of cruel and unusual punishment. In the ACLU's eyes, sex-change operations and their medicinal counterparts are "reasonable and necessary medical care."
Countering Mr. Dupuis' claims, it's imperative to note that a majority of health insurance providers don't cover sex-change operations under their medical plans. The obligation of any health care company is to provide coverage to its customers for "reasonable and necessary medical care." Individuals who decide upon operations or treatment that changes their sexual features must pay for it themselves.
According to the Associated Press, hormone therapy costs between $675 and $1,600 per year. According to the New York Times, sexual reassignment surgery can cost anywhere from $7,000 to $24,000.
Echoing many Wisconsin constituents, AB 184 lead author Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, said, "To stop forcing taxpayers to pay for sex-change therapy for prisoners certainly is not cruel and unusual punishment. I think it's absurd for anyone, especially a federal judge, to argue that sex-change therapy is somehow medicinal in nature. It's a choice."
At a time when prisons throughout the country, let alone Wisconsin, are facing an ever-growing depletion of funds, valuable resources must be spent prudently and effectively. Drug rehabilitation programs, vocational schooling and additional medical staff are areas that demand and deserve immediate attention — attention that is being negligently shifted by the ACLU and its lawsuit.
Josh Moskowitz (jmoskowitz@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.
Anonymous (February 10, 2006 @ 11:33am):
Has the ACLU filed a suit to get prisoners who are balding Propecia. First you stick a poor guy in prison and then you laugh at him as his hair falls out. How cruel is that.
Sex change operations are an elective procedure that are not considered medically necessary just as men do not die from male pattern baldness they do not die from being born a boy or a girl. Killing themselves because they can not accept who they are is their problem not the states.
The fact that the prison system ever started paying for this illuminates how messed up government left unchecked can become. Are their other prescriptions and medical/dental benefits that are being given to prisoners that poor working americans can't afford? Was that addressed in the Bill or did they just focus on sex reassignment?
Anonymous (February 10, 2006 @ 11:41am):
I know that the authors don't make up the headlines, but seriously this has to be the greatest title of all time. And thanks for the typical conservative route; find some little meaningless issue that allows you to beat your "i'm sick of being persecuted for being white and male" drum.
Anonymous (February 10, 2006 @ 2:32pm):
I think Mr. Moskowitz is missing the point of the 8th amendment altogether. The point of the 8th amendment is to ensure that services that would be provided to inmates outside of prison are continued in continuity when a person is incarcerated. While your personal, and might I add biased and unscientific, view might be that people undergoing gender transition is not 'medically necessary' and is 'a choice', the fact of the matter is that the social and medical science researching this area since the 1950's has shown otherwise.
The scientific facts are that hormones impact almost every cell in our bodies, from neurotransmitters, to epithelial tissue, right on down to insulin producing pancreatic cells. One cannot simply withdraw someone from hormone therapy on a whim without balancing the medical pros and cons. Those decisions should be left up to knowledgeable doctors and medical professions whose job it is to have the answers.
Instead, AB 184 preys on incarcerated people who have no other access to medical resources other than those provided by the state. And while you are factually incorrect, some insurance plans, such as ones offered by Aetna Health, do in fact cover Sex Reassignment Surgery, many in fact cover hormonal and mental health costs associated with gender transition.
AB 184 is tantamount to bullying inmates who may entering incarceration already being administered hormones into stopping transition, and removing any choice they have in the matter.
While we can debate the matter until we are blue in the face, my prediction is that the federal courts will find that denying any inmate medical care that they would otherwise be able to access outside of incarceration is unconstitutional.
AB 184 begs the question "where does the buck stop" will inmates be denied anti-depressants next, access to sexual health services, or will it be access to disease management education?
Transgender and Transsexual inmates are easy targets for bigotry. As you pointed out, hormonal therapy is minimal in cost. No in-mate to date (at least in my knowledge) in Wisconsin has undergone sex reassignment surgery on the state's tab. If health care costs are limited to hormones that would otherwise be provided to post-menopausal female inmates, what is all the belly aching about? The major cost of running prisons is in fact issues of employees, building maintenance, food, and rehabilitation services. Not if 4 or 5 transgender inmates can get $500.- worth of hormones a year to feel a sense of healing and alignment that alleviates intense distress.
This is bullying and bigotry without a doubt. The assembly should feel ashamed of itself for passing such a ridiculous and unworthy measure when there is a state budget to balance, and under funding of schools. Saving $3,000.- a year from denying transgender inmates hormones isn't going to buy books for one classroom. Simply absurd.
-Danielle Askini
http://www.nikaaskini.com
Anonymous (February 10, 2006 @ 3:19pm):
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
Anonymous (February 10, 2006 @ 3:24pm):
So if I need an operation I can't pay for I should rob a bank and then give myself up so the government will pay for it?
Anonymous (February 11, 2006 @ 3:36am):
"And thanks for the typical conservative route; find some little meaningless issue that allows you to beat your "i'm sick of being persecuted for being white and male" drum."
Ah, more anti-white male mud from the left. You'd be interested in knowing that not all the white males who are complaining about it are conservatives. And the simple fact that you singled them out only proves that you are left-wing extremist. And you wonder why the country is swinging solidly to the right. Go ahead, keep on alienating as many people as you can. Someday you'll find yourself a minority, with no one around to care what happens to you.
Anonymous (February 11, 2006 @ 3:39am):
"So if I need an operation I can't pay for I should rob a bank and then give myself up so the government will pay for it?"
For a sex change? Get a grip, dude! Or is it "lady." Whatever!
Anonymous (February 11, 2006 @ 10:56am):
So when do we start providing breast implants for female inmates who feel inadequate? Or rhinoplasty for someone with a big or crooked nose? Hell.... im gonna go to jail and get an "extreme makeover" on the taxpayers! i mean, i can get that care outside of prison... so i better get it inside of prison!
Anonymous (February 11, 2006 @ 11:45am):
To the above poster: No, but if the surgery really is necessary maybe next time around you should vote for someone who is going to give you health care so you don't die on the curb.
Anonymous (February 11, 2006 @ 9:41pm):
The real debate is whether the level of coverage should be for health care that is necessary and not for what is legally defined as elective procedures. An elective procedure is something you want, not something you actually need. Sex change operations and the hormone therapy that goes with them are considered elective. That's why insurance companies don't cover them. If you want become the opposite sex, pay for it yourself! If you can't pay for it, learn to live with yourself as you are.
Anonymous (February 11, 2006 @ 10:29pm):
Any Employer can add riders that cover all sorts of care that is not medically necessary. I have a brother who had lasic for a $10 co-pay. I hate it when the left confuses Health Care with Health Insurance. Any person can show up at an Emergency Room and get health care. Even when the do not have the means to pay for the care they will receive.
We can argue that the current system of treating colds and hang nails in the emergency room is not an effective use of medical resources. But having lived in Europe and at the time used the state health system in Austria, I prefer the U.S. system. I am not at all comfortable with handing over such a driving part of our economy to the bubble heads in D.C.
Anonymous (February 12, 2006 @ 11:49am):
"going to give you health care"
Whoa, a free lunch? I thought there was no free lunch. Can I get a steak to go along with that "free" health care? And some nice red wine?
Anonymous (February 12, 2006 @ 3:41pm):
"Transgender and Transsexual inmates are easy targets for bigotry."
Not if you define bigotry as refusal to put up with your straight-bashing crap! How many cheap shots do you gay boys think you'll be able to take at us before it's too late to turn things around? You're already too close to the edge. You can't make a statement anymore without sideswiping a straight male somewhere who hasn't even said or done anything to piss you off. It's the innocent people that you end up going after. And that's how you lost MY support.
susan longsworth (February 12, 2006 @ 4:44pm):
Not if you define bigotry as refusal to put up with your straight-bashing crap! How many cheap shots do you gay boys think you'll be able to take at us before it's too late to turn things around? You're already too close to the edge. You can't make a statement anymore without sideswiping a straight male somewhere who hasn't even said or done anything to piss you off. It's the innocent people that you end up going after. And that's how you lost MY support.
===========================================
You are way off base here bigot boy. Transsexuals are not necessarily gay. They have a gender identity problem. Being gay is attraction to the same sex. Transsexuals are someone who from birth identify with the gender opposite their birth sex. Get it,,,,, Gender--Sex,,,,,,,, Apples--Oranges. Being transsexual has nothing to do with sexual orientation. It is a birth defect or anomaly, just like being born with a pea sized brain like you.
Susan
Anonymous (February 12, 2006 @ 7:10pm):
Uh, call down there buddy. I am a very happily straight white male but I haven't exactly felt threatened by any big gay gang yet. You need to just chill out and smoke some weed man.
Renee Simousek (February 13, 2006 @ 9:45am):
Mr Moshkowitz,
I am writing in response to your article about the Inmate Sex Change Act recently passed by the state legislature.
I find it very disconcerting that people have such negative opions of transsexual people, especially when it's quite evident that these same people who rave about how much tax payer dollars we spend treating said transsexual people have probably never met one. We actually spend alot more money looking for lawmakers on the take! My advise to you folks is "take a transsexual to lunch." Get to know one of us. It funny how one can use an opinon to damn a person to more suffering because of societies general lack of knowledge. Suddendly politically powerful white males have some clue what being transsexual is all about. Come on guys-you know you don't know what you're talking about! You're not experts, in fact you don't know item one about us that's actually true. Does beating up on people less politically powerful than you really make you more manly? Be honest. It's just mean and uncivilizied. Is this the kind of society we really want?
So put yourself in this position for a moment, you're a guy and through no fault of your own you come down with a case of gynecomastia(since you're all experts on everthing you should know what gynecomastia is) from the polluted water you have been drinking, you have developed breasts, being a guy this is really uncomfortable for you.
To you it just feels wrong, your friends go away, your wife wants nothing to do with you and you are severly depressed. What would you do? You feel like doing away with yourself, your world is suddenly turned upside down. What a mess! What do you do?
Most intelligent guys would probably seek help from a pychiatrist for depression(caused by all the nasty things people say about you) and you would seek a surgeon to to remove those appendages growing on your chest. Your also probably being inject with testosterone to combat the estrogenic effects of whatever hell you drank in the polluted water. All the while nobody seems to understand what your going through and powerful men grind you into the ground with their expert opinion of what and who you are. Sounds like fun doesn't it? Welcome to my world Mr. encylopedic knowledge! I'm Transsexual.
I didn't ask for it, I didn't want it, but thats the cards I got dealt. So I dealt with it and here I am writing to you, after I lost my wife and my business. Sound like a choice to you?
That might give you some understanding of what it is like for a transsexual person.
But it really doesn't come close. You wouldn't last a week in our shoes.
I'm not going to further berate your intelligence, obviously you DO have a brain, but your insistance that transsexual are "gay" or some how less than human really make you like a fool that doesn't check his facts.
The fact of the matter is treatment for Gender Identity Disorder is a medically valid treatment for transsexual people.
Go look it up. It's not make beleive.
And as far as transsexuality being choice, it's a choice to die slowly from within, or have the guts to be who you really are.
I would have choose not to deal with it period. But, it doesn't go away, it's kind of like ignorance that way. One needs knowledge and intestinal fortitude to combat both ignorance or transsexualism.
I'm middle clas and I don't particualry like the idea of someone getting treatment for free, whilst I had to work my butt of to save and for the treatment I need. But once you start taking hormones, you can't stop, it's detrimental to one's health.
That's a medical fact. Again, I'm not making this up. I've actually been through it.
The law in question overreaches, it punishes people already being punished twice, once by the state (for doing something wrong-I have no problem woith this), and again from within ( for just being yourself). Being without a medically prescribed treatment because ignorant people decide that's a good idea is wrong. Period. It's not medicine, it's not science, it's just cruelty.
But I suppose you already know all of this.
Then why would you print such things, oh, that's right you really don't know do you?
So how about lunch Mr. Moskowitz?
I'll put action where my words are email me we'll go to lunch. We'll go dutch. No problem.
Respectfully,
Renee Simousek
Don't beleive me, google my name.
See ya at lunch.
Anonymous (February 14, 2006 @ 9:34am):
People who elect to change sexes aren't gay, or less than human. Nobody here has a problem with any sort of elective surgery, as long as the recipient is paying for it. It isn't much of a stretch to say that this is no different from me being depressed because I have a large nose, and nobody is suggesting that the state should pay for my rhinoplasty.
Renee Simousek (February 15, 2006 @ 9:06am):
Well, it is in fact, a big stretch to say that a nose job is somehow analogous to Gender Confirmation Surgery.
Gender confirmation surgury is not analogous to having a nose job, it is the confirming surgery after going through a comprehensive program of gender reassignment. Have you ever heard of a nasal reassignment program? I don't think so. Because society could care less what you do with your nose as long as you keep it out of other peoples business. There isn't a stigma attached to changing your nose. People won't ask you questions like when was the first time you felt like you where rhino-dysphoric?
If you get surgury on your genitals you get a lot more hassel than if you change your nose. If you can't see that then Goddess help you!
And surgery has nothing to do with withholding hormones as part of a medical program. When did these hayseed morons in the legislature become doctors?
Legislators are not doctors(not most of them anyway) and they should not interfere with the doctor patient relationship. What about the cost of having to treat people later because they harm themselves? Wouldn't it save the tax payers money to treat something before it is an issue rather than afterword? Or would we rather see people suffer because we don't want to understand another persons pain.
People should refrain from commenting about things they know nothing about. Some folks are just plain mean and ignorant!
