BOSTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has overturned a ruling ordering Massachusetts prison officials to provide taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery for an inmate convicted of murder.
Michelle Kosilek, born Robert Kosilek, has waged a protracted legal battle for the surgery she says is needed to relieve the mental anguish caused by gender-identity disorder.
In 2012, a federal judge ruled that prison officials must provide the surgery. That decision was upheld by a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but prison officials appealed and won a rehearing before the full appeals court.
On Dec. 16, the full 1st Circuit found that Kosilek failed to demonstrate that prison officials violated the Eight Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment by not providing the surgery.
