Kosilek files lawsuit in bid for sex change surgery, transfer
An inmate convicted of murder more than two decades ago is suing state Correction Commissioner Thomas A. Turco in her latest bid for taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery.
In a lawsuit filed on her own behalf last week in U.S. District Court in Boston, Michelle Kosilek asks the court to order Turco to immediately transfer her from MCI-Norfolk, the men’s prison where she is serving a life sentence, to MCI-Framingham, the state’s women’s prison, and to have the Department of Correction’s contracted medical provider schedule her for “genderaffirming” surgery.
Kosilek, 68, accuses the commissioner of an “ongoing, painful violation of her federal civil right to proper treatment for gender dysphoria” instead of merely the facial-hair removal and hormone therapy she has received in prison.
“Like offering a painkiller for cancer instead of the necessary chemotherapy, this approach offers the plaintiff nothing but the surety that she will continue to suffer every day until she dies,” the suit alleges.
A spokesman for the Department of Correction yesterday declined to comment while the lawsuit is pending.
In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Kosilek’s argument that not allowing the surgery is unconstitutional, and let stand an appeals court ruling that denied the procedure in December 2014. That decision overturned a 2012 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf, who ordered the surgery.
The Department of Correction fought Kosilek’s request for years, and the U.S. Appeals Court in Boston ruled that there were “valid security concerns” brought up by the DOC in its appeal, despite her claim that the department was violating her Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment. She said the surgery was necessary to relieve the mental anguish caused by gender-identity disorder.
Kosilek was known as Robert Kosilek in 1990 when she was convicted of murdering her wife, Cheryl.