BOISE — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has become the first circuit in the nation to order a state to pay for an inmate’s gender confirmation surgery, ruling Monday that a three-judge panel decision will stand.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little said he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
A three-judge panel of the appellate court first ruled in August that the state must give 32-year-old inmate Adree Edmo gender confirmation surgery, agreeing with a federal judge in Idaho that denying the surgery amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.