California Inmate Gets Suit Over Gender-Confirming Care Revived

California corrections department officials are facing a renewed lawsuit over their denial of a transgender inmate’s request for gender-confirming surgery to treat her gender dysphoria.

A 2011 state-court decision that refused to order officials to provide surgical treatment to Lyralisa Stevens didn’t preclude her from bringing a new suit alleging that the officials were deliberately indifferent to her medical needs in 2016, when they again denied her request for surgery, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said Monday in an unpublished opinion.

Under California law, a prior decision bars relitigation of an issue if the facts and ...