Perhaps Your Tax Dollars At Work Department in Massachusetts:
A man serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife is asking a federal judge to order the state to pay for a sex-change operation for him, saying that denying him the surgery amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
A psychiatrist testified Tuesday that he believes Robert Kosilek will kill himself if state correction officials refuse to allow the surgery and Kosilek is unable to complete his transformation into a woman.
Kosilek, 57, was convicted of strangling his wife, Cheryl, in 1990.
In 2002, U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled that Kosilek _ who now goes by the name of Michelle _ was entitled to treatment for gender identity disorder, but stopped short of ordering the state to pay for the sex-change operation.
Since then, Kosilek has received psychotherapy, female hormone treatments and laser hair removal. Kosilek, who wears his hair long and tucked behind his ears, has developed larger breasts since beginning hormone treatments.
Kosilek sued the Department of Correction for the second time last year, saying that numerous psychiatrists who had examined him _ including two of the DOC’s own experts _ had determined that a sex- change operation is “medically necessary.”
“We ask that gender identity disorder be treated like any other medical condition,” said Kosilek’s attorney, Frances Cohen.
Kosilek sat quietly in court Tuesday as his attorney and an attorney for the state Department of Correction made opening statements in a trial that is expected to last up to two weeks. Kosilek opted to have the case heard by Wolf instead of a jury.
During the 2002 trial, Kosilek testified that he has suffered from gender identity disorder since the age of 3. He said he had twice tried to kill himself and also tried to castrate himself.
Oh.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.