Depriving a transgender inmate with severe gender dysphoria of sex reassignment surgery is a form of “cruel and unusual punishment,” a federal appeals court ruled Friday, affirming a lower court ruling.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the state of Idaho to provide the surgery for trans inmate Adree Edmo. The ruling is the first time an appeals court has ordered a state to provide gender-affirming surgery to a prisoner, and the decision is at odds with a ruling issued earlier this year by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Idaho’s Republican governor, Brad Little, vowed to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.