SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)- The first U.S. inmate to have taxpayer-funded sex reassignment surgery again has access to a razor after she complained that she was being forced to grow a beard and mustache in a women’s prison, a state corrections official said Tuesday.
Shiloh Quine was recently moved into the general inmate population at the Central California Women’s Facility, said corrections department spokeswoman Terry Thornton. There she can have a razor and other property that routinely wasn’t allowed for nearly two months while she was being evaluated as a new inmate.
The convicted murderer was transferred to the women’s prison in Chowchilla last month after having the sex reassignment surgery in January.
Quine, 57, alleged in a recent federal court filing that prison officials were retaliating against her by denying her a razor, her television and enough privacy to perform required intimate post-operative procedures.
But Thornton said the same rules apply to all female inmates.
Quine said in the court filing that her facial hair was making the transition to life as a woman more difficult.
She was known as Rodney James Quine when she and an accomplice kidnapped and fatally shot 33-year-old Shahid Ali Baig, a father of three, during a robbery in downtown Los Angeles in 1980.
Quine had been housed in men’s prisons for 36 years despite living as a woman since 2009. California settled her lawsuit in 2015 by agreeing to provide the surgery.
Quine’s attorneys at the nonprofit Transgender Law Center did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
