Ruling Recognizing Inmate’s Right to Gender Confirmation Stands

A ruling that Idaho prison officials violated a transgender prisoner’s constitutional rights by failing to provide her gender confirmation surgery will remain in place after the Ninth Circuit declined Monday to reconsider a panel decision.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in August 2019 held that the prison violated a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment by failing to provide gender confirmation surgery as a medically necessary treatment for her gender dysphoria.

When the medically necessary treatment for a prisoner’s gender dysphoria is gender confirmation surgery and prison officials refuse ...