re: #29 SanFranciscoZionist

I’m torn. On the one hand, if a competent medical team signs off on a gender reassignment surgery, I’m down with that, normally, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t be covered by medical insurance, etc., etc.

On the other hand, I’m more concerned about the fact that Kosilek is a convicted murderer than about the fact that she is transgendered. For some reason, the notion that you can kill your wife and then have the state pay for expensive (and yes, elective) surgery that some law-abiding people go through hell to pay for seems fairly fucked up to me. Now, you could argue that that’s true of almost any medical treatment, but some transpeople never do surgical transition, by choice. I don’t know as I buy this as essential health care.

On the third hand, apparently she’s already transitioning with hormones, and being effectively female in a men’s prison sounds like a completely untenable situation. I’m not sure they should have started the hormones, but no one asked me.

On the fourth, I share Emmmie’s concern, should she be transferred to a women’s prison. All of the transwomen I’ve had the pleasure of meeting were extremely nice ladies, but they’re tall, broad-shouldered ladies. This is someone who already has a record of deadly violence against women, as a man. Concerns I don’t have about nice normal computer programmers who are trans do come up here.

This is a curiosity based an anomaly. Real concern would be the differential cancer survival rates of state prisoners and the state’s general population. You don’t want to have leukemia in an Alabama prison.