California has become the first state in the nation to agree to pay for a transgender inmate’s sex-reassignment surgery on the basis of “medical necessity,” according to state medical experts.
Rodney James Quine, 56, who since 1980 has been serving a life sentence without parole for murder, kidnapping and robbery, has been diagnosed with “severe gender dysphoria.”
...Under the settlement agreement reached June 12 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Quine - who has been taking female hormones and goes by the name of “Shiloh Heavenly” - will be moved to a women's prison once the genital sex-reassignment surgery is completed, which his lawyers estimate will cost taxpayers between $15,000 and $25,000.
Read more here.
