Whole lot of nonsense. It's like that guy on death row who got a heart transplant.

Worse! At least there he is always potentially getting a pardon or an appeal or a commutation to life in prison. This ass is "mentally" ill? Bullshit! He expects to be put in a woman's prison and thinks it will somehow be easier on him. And that judge is the definition of fucktard. Look next to fucktard in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of this judge.

" In his ruling Tuesday, Wolf found that surgery is the 'only adequate treatment' for Kosilek’s 'serious medical need.' "

I guess that sums it up as to why you're paying. Since none of us are in a position to comment on the validity of that statement, perhaps we shouldn't try.

@YJ

No one who isn't a murderer is getting the same treatment at my expense for the same "serious medical problem" are they? Why is a murder getting preference?

Chop it off... surgery done.

Actually, this is when the government's lowest bidder should get the job...

abge, the state has certain obligations to provide necessary medical treatment to those it incarcerates (yes, heart surgery for death row inmates too).

It's easy for "normal" people like you and me to be dismissive about something like this, where we don't understand how such a thing could possibly be necessary, but we don't have the facts. Who does? The judge.

Yes, I understand that and I'm not proposing we let inmates rot in a cell. But these are complicated and expensive procedures which sometimes take up finite resources (such as organs). In a country where so many hardworking people can't even get a primary doctor I think this is complete BS.

Clearly this poor inmate's serious medical problem was the cause of the emotional strain that made him murder in the first place. After his op he should be released and compensated for his ill treatment by society!

I DEMAND JUSTICE!!!

I agree wholeheartedly, abge. In this day and age, adequate medical care should be a right for EVERYBODY.

Octavious, despite your sarcasm, you might be more correct than you realize. Buffalo Bill, anybody? I know he's a fictional character but he's based on real people. Gender identity confusion can and does lead to violent behavior. But again, that's just speculation - no idea whether it applies in this case.

Considering she was already getting hormone therapy she was already effectively living as a woman in a male prison, which should not be wished upon anyone. I see being a 'liberal' doesn't preclude people from being transphobic jackasses. The cost for a sex change from male to female can be as low as $7,000. So if you'd like, I can mail you the one-billionth of a penny it might have "cost" you.

If only dipshits were this upset about being taxed to fund mercenaries butchering people overseas.

Trannies are almost all nonviolent, and Silence caught some heat for portraying one as being a psycho killer. Also, this judge is a Reagan appointee.

@AWB - Being a Reagan apointee makes it that much more mind baffling. It's not exactly a right wing view that Transexualism is normal or even anything but a life style choice when you ask the right wing nuts.

It's not baffling when you consider the actual case, in which the inmate was diagnosed having a very serious gender identity disorder and under constant suicide watch. Refusing to treat someone with a mental illness just because it is unpopular with cisgendered clowns is a violation of the Eighth Amendment, it's the very reason why we have courts to begin with.

one billionth of a penny means it had to only cost 1/3 of a penny. Simple math putin. 7000 divided by 350 million is 1/500 of a penny for each person in the US. But considering the state this prisoner is located in, it will only actually cost the people of that state, so a significantly higher portion per person over fewer people.

Oh humanity. I prefer the medieval discussions on the sex of angels.

Fine, I'll mail you the 1/10th of a penny it cost the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for your 'trouble'.

Sorry Putin, but I just had to bust the bubble of your hyperbole.

From what I read of the story, the homrone treatments were what was ordered by the court originally. I saw nothing that indicated the murderer was even a transvestite when he entered prison. May be I overlooked it, but I don't think I did.

@YJ Buffalo Bill? Unless there was more to the Wild West Show than I ever realised I have no idea what you're talking about.

"I saw nothing that indicated the murderer was even a transvestite when he entered prison"
Transvestism (correct word?) is not a a necessary precursor for hormone treatment or gender reassignment.

If we're willing to treat other inmate ailments - be it medical of psychological - then it seems nothing short of bigotry to not treat this too.

Yes, you clearly overlooked it. Kosilek has steadily believed she was a woman trapped inside a man's body since before the age of ten, when she was repeatedly abused (including stabbed) by her stepfather because she wanted to live as a girl. Kosilek later acquried female hormones from a physician in exchange for sex, whereby she reported this was the only time she felt 'normal' in her life. His wife who he met in a drug rehabilitation center, said his transsexualism could be "cured" by a "good woman".

The murder occurred when Kosilek was found wearing "his" wife's clothes and she became angry with him.

I'd say you overlooked the entire case.

Octavius, Buffalo Bill was a character in Silence of the Lambs - supposedly based on a real person.

Also, when Kosilek was arrested, she was wearing female clothing.

In an ideal world there is a case for helping these people, but I could never justify helping them before the same help is avaliable for those not in prison.

So we should deny mental health treatment to prisoners because your failure of a social system doesn't adequately provide for people's mental health on societal scale? Let me guess, we should also not provide food, clothing and shelter to prisoners because your wonderful free market paradise doesn't provide those to people either?

You would fix the prisons before the social systems, Putin?

Hey Zmaj! http://imgur.com/S5Mfu

"Fix". I advocate prisons doing what they are legally obligated to do, and that's provide medical care. The excuse of living in a miserly, dog-eat-dog social system that doesn't care about people is not a valid one for treating people held in custody inhumanely and depriving people of urgent medical needs.

It's your thinking that resulted in POWs being slaughtered wholesale. Afterall, why bother providing medical treatment to the very people trying to kill you? Makes no sense, right? Thankfully society has progressed beyond that.