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Transgender inmates are barred from medical treatment.
In 2005, the Wisconsin legislature passed a law that bars
prison doctors from deciding the best course of treatment for transgender people
by denying them access to any type of hormone therapy or sex reassignment
surgery while in state custody The ACLU and Lambda Legal are representing
two inmates incarcerated for nonviolent offenses: Kari Sundstrom and Andrea
Fields, who are both serving time in Wisconsin prisons on forgery charges.
Sundstrom, 41, has been on hormone therapy since 1990. Fields, 29, has
been on hormone therapy since 1996. Medical experts agree that blocking people from access to hormone
treatment after they have been on the treatment is especially dangerous and
could cause life-threatening damage. The lawsuit charges that it is a violation
of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection as well as the guarantee
against cruel and unusual punishment to bar transgender inmates from access to
individualized medical care. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit do not seek sex
reassignment surgery, but merely seek to continue the hormone therapy they have
received for all of their adult lives.
In 2005, the Wisconsin legislature passed a law that bars
prison doctors from deciding the best course of treatment for transgender people
by denying them access to any type of hormone therapy or sex reassignment
surgery while in state custody The ACLU and Lambda Legal are representing
two inmates incarcerated for nonviolent offenses: Kari Sundstrom and Andrea
Fields, who are both serving time in Wisconsin prisons on forgery charges.
Sundstrom, 41, has been on hormone therapy since 1990. Fields, 29, has
been on hormone therapy since 1996. Medical experts agree that blocking people from access to hormone
treatment after they have been on the treatment is especially dangerous and
could cause life-threatening damage. The lawsuit charges that it is a violation
of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection as well as the guarantee
against cruel and unusual punishment to bar transgender inmates from access to
individualized medical care. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit do not seek sex
reassignment surgery, but merely seek to continue the hormone therapy they have
received for all of their adult lives.
