On Friday, Governor Jerry Brown announced he would allow the parole board’s decision to release Norsworthy to proceed, meaning she’d be released shortly.
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“They’ve had a written policy… that surgical treatment (for transgender inmates) shall not be available and shall be deferred past the time of incarceration”, Ilona Turner, legal director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, said Monday.
Norsworthy had been serving time at Mule Creek State Prison, a men’s facility east of Sacramento.
In 2009, Norsworthy was the victim of a rape, which led her to become an advocate for rape-prevention policies while in prison.
A federal judge ordered that the state provide the former Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy’s surgery in April, but the July medical date was delayed while the ruling was appealed. Quine’s lawyers said their research shows the cost of the operation she seeks ranges from $15,000 to $25,000.
Michelle-Lael Norsworthy’s release comes a day before a federal appeals court was set to hear her request for the state prison to pay for her sex reassignment surgery.
As a free woman, Norsworthy’s attorneys said she can have the surgery paid for by Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor and those with lower incomes. The prison system says it has several hundred transgender inmates who are taking hormones.
During a Fox & Friends segment titled “Taxed To The Max”, host Steve Doocy wanted to know if it was fair that taxpayers had to pay for the gender reassignment of a California inmate, Shiloh Quine, who doctors have said would kill herself without the surgery. The state’s position was undermined in June when its own expert concluded that Quine required the operation.
Because the state agreed to grant Quine’s surgery in a settlement, the case does not establish a precedent or declare the surgery a constitutional right.
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The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation wants to decide whether to approve sex reassignment surgery on a case-by-case basis.
