Sorry No

I don't often disagree with the many LGBT organizations, and especially the transgender organizations. They do good work on legal rights and protections for transitioning people, but they often take it to the extreme forgetting the overall context of transgender people in society and this country.

A case in point is Michelle Kosilek who brutally murdered his wife and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole. I won't argue the State of Massachusetts Department of Corrections (DOC) has mishandled his care when he decided to transition in prision.

They denied him the care to transition with respect to therapy, hormone drugs, and now surgery, which is where he's at now in his transition. I don't use the male pronoun to refer to a male-to-female transpeople but I will in this case because he's in a male prison still legally recognized as male.

The courts have ordered the DOC provide him with Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) to complete his transition and become physically and legally female. I don't have a problem with that so long as he pays the bill. An identical case in California has denied the right of an inmate to SRS paid by the State of Califonia.

The Kosilek case is no different. It's not surgery necessary to save the life of the inmate, or it is necessary surgery to ensure the inmate health in prison. And that's my argument against the organizations filing friend of the court briefs in support of Michelle Kosilek.

If they want to help people get SRS, then advocate for the health insurance companies to remove the exclusion for "sex transformation" treatment from their coverage and plans. Advocate for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to demand health insurance companies to likewise for federal employees and retirees.

If they want to help people get SRS, the advocate for companies to include this coverage in their employee plans. Advocate for young people in college to get the surgery through their respective college or university student health plans.

Advocate for all the free people who are at the same point in their transition who want and need the surgery who can go on and have productive lives as free people and not have the burden of living in between legal sexes while saving for the surgery.

But don't advocate for someone serving a life sentence who demands the taxpayers pay for it until you advocate for the rest of the people needing and deserving it. While all those people can't get help from all these same organizations, they're fighting for this one inmate but not fighting for the same thing for a California inmate?

Why is that? Michelle Kosilek will never leave prison. After surgery she will be reassigned to a women's prison. Does she expect to be better treated there? Really? Michelle will still be serving a life sentence, so exactly why would she need the surgery for that?

And what about all the free people needing and wanting the surgery? They don't count? They're less, even not, important than this one inmate? These organizations need to rethink their priorities. Michelle getting surgery won't help anyone else as the case won't translate to other people.

These organizations will waste their resources for what? One person who is serving a life sentence? Sorry, no. Michelle Kosilek killed his wife. He doesn't deserve more than just serving his sentence.