My mum told me that a murderer killed his wife to assume the role as female. She was transgender, but OBVIOUSLY had more problems than simply that. Transgender people wouldn't KILL people, there is a HUGE difference.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/convi...89#.UE0FfI1lTis <<proof

How are you going to rehabilitate someone without also addressing their mental health? Gender-reassignment is not a "reward", it's a treatment.

It's a murder. In jail! A MURDERER.

If this guy was SIMPLY transgender, it would be fine. But he is insane, and is confused as being simply trans. He never deserved a sex change. He just doesn't.

^The fact that he's a murderer doesn't mean he shouldn't be able to live in the body he wants. People have the right to be given the chance to repent, and denying him the sex change would prove that the people "punishing" him are in no place to do so, seeing as they are just as cruel as he was when he did the crime. But wait, this rant comes from the person who is okay with death sentence, why the hell do I even bother...

I can't believe this. This person was punished for being a murderer yet is given a sex change they didn't deserve and yet SOMEHOW I'm being closed-minded? This is a PSYCHO. A PSYCHO. I am not being closed minded, I myself am technically trans.

Believe it. Wouldn't be much of a debate if everyone agreed with you.

How exactly does one "deserve" a sex change? If gender reassignment is a treatment for someone with gender identity disorder, then surely it's medical treatment. Personally I believe that everyone should receive the medical treatment that they need (though I am fully aware that that doesn't always happen, wherever one lives and for whatever reason). If he suffered a stroke, I would expect him to receive the care he needed to recover as best as was possible. If he had cancer, I would expect them to try and treat it. If he had schizophrenia, I would expect him to be treated for it in the most appropriate fashion. Why should this be any different?

The sex change wasn't a reward for killing his wife. He's in prison as a punishment for killing his wife. He shouldn't have killed his wife. He should be punished for doing so, and he is being. But he shouldn't receive an extra punishment of being denied a sex change. Most murderers aren't forced to live as the wrong gender, as they see/feel it. If you think that he should have been forced to remain in a man's body as part of his punishment, should all non-transgender murderers be forced to have a sex change that they don't want as part of their punishment? No, obviously they shouldn't. It would be ridiculous.

And cases like this don't make the general public think that all transgender people are murderers, it makes people think that this transgender person is a murderer. Because he is. Exactly the same as some white people, some black people, some Asian people, some bisexual people, some homosexual people, some straight people, some men, some women etc are murderers. But not all of them.

You say "transgender people wouldn't kill people" and obviously no, most wouldn't. But some would, and do. Not because they're transgender, but because they are a person who would murder someone. I doubt that they "confused his malfunction as [being] simply trans" - they are aware that he is a murderer and are punishing him by jailing him, but they clearly did not consider that it was justified to not allow him to have a sex change as part of his punishment. He was sentenced to serve a jail sentence, not to serve a jail sentence and be denied medical treatment. Allowing one jailed transexual murderer to have a sex change doesn't give people the impression that all transgender people are murderers. I don't see how it sets back transgender people's chance of being treated like normal people. Well, I see how it could do, but it shouldn't, and it won't if people have any commons sense! One transgender murderer does not all transgender people murderers make......

He can be transgender and have other mental health problems, or have a personality that makes him a potential (and in this case actual) murderer (or be "insane", as you put it - I find that somewhat offensive) without them refusing him treatment related to his being transgender. I'm sure nobody said "Well, he's transgender, and that made him a murderer, so we'll give him a sex change and he'll be fine and we can just let him go". They must be aware that he has other issues, and as he remains in jail they are punishing him for his crime. But the fact that he is a murderer is no reason to deny him medical treatment - that is not part of the punishment that he has been sentenced to and it shouldn't be.

I am aware that prisoners in the USA and worldwide sometimes (often?) don't receive the medical treatment they need, and I don't like that. I am also aware that some people can't afford the medical treatment they need, or it's not covered by their insurance or by the NHS in the UK. I don't like that either. In a perfect world I believe that everyone would receive the treatment they required, but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world.

As I understand the ruling, he's currently living as a transgendered in a men's prison. Whether I like that aspect of prison life or not, I imagine he's quite popular. As such though, I can understand giving him gender reassignment surgery to "make it official" in the eyes of the law, allowing her to be placed into a women's institution for her own protection.

When you put someone into prison you become responsible for them as much as if they were a child in the care of the government. We have expectations of care and treatment, otherwise I could just arrest you for shoplifting and pump bullets into you once I get you behind bars, or not feed you, or let prisons become havens for disease. Maybe that's the sort of evil place you want to be responsible for, jthm_nny, but personally I'd rather have a more civilized society. I expect if she were ever supposed to get out of prison she'd find herself with a bill for all of this surgery she's taking, but still get an allowance for it. Since she won't ever get out of prison though, it falls onto the backs of society. Or maybe it's supposed to be that we wave away that she's essentially a woman in a men's prison, sitting as rape bait for her fellow inmates, because she's also a terrible person? That we should reward the other terrible people inside prisons with this person as less deserving of protection than another?

Also: You probably need more RANDOM CAPS in your posts. It really makes for a more convincing argument. I know, I was swayed.

Prisons aren't supposed to exist to punish people, but to reinsert them in society. This person was struggling with a lot of psychological pain, which probably needed to be treated by giving gender reassignment surgery. I'm not a transgender but I've read from various people who are transgender that not living "in the correct body" if a huge resource of suffering, so I understand they're trying to work in the psychological recovery of this person, who of course might have other mental disorders too. Like lauratje86 said, prisoners should also have the right to receive medical treatments and, in my opinion, medical treatments that influence in a person's health should be payed via taxes, so I agree with this.

I don't see how giving a gender reassignment surgery to a particular person, a murderer in this case, can make it look like all transgenders are psychotic murderers. One should be really close-minded (and also fail at logic) if they come to that conclusion, because correlation doesn't mean cause. He killed AND was a trans man... it's not he killed someone BECAUSE he was a trans man.

Plus, as Mistermook has pointed out, it is way safer for her being in the women prison than being "the trans" in men prison.

Actually, you are being close minded. Who are you to judge? After all, all you have read is one tiny newspaper account. You don't know the full story, or this person's full medical history.
If we were expected to base an opinion about transgendered people solely on the actions of one person, good or bad, would that make you , or anyone else, a good representation of trans-people? I don't know the details of your life, but haven't you ever done anything wrong? Sure maybe not as bad as murder, but would YOU like it if someone said, "Hey, you don't DESERVE to be transgendered because of what you did."? When you start to judge others, you can surely expect to be judged yourself.

*Edit* That was timely, ButchSims. I hadn't seen your post as I was writing mine, but it almost seems like a response.

Here's another article on the same topic: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...d-by-judge?lite


While still not an "in depth" article, it discusses briefly why this might have been seen as necessary. Please note that the inmate has attempted to castrate himself and to commit suicide because he feels he is in the wrong body.

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. It's hard for me to understand how this is necessary medical treatment, but I will say I just don't know.

In either case, the treatment is not reducing or changing his sentence. He's still serving life for what he did.

This is the key for me. She's not getting out of anything. She's essentially switching prisons - male for female, and she's already been living for years as the non-gender assigned female in a men's prison. Is it an expense for the government? Sure, but no more so than if she'd be if she were eventually been raped in such a way that the State couldn't wiggle out of their obligation to provide a safe environment for her.

I know some people want prisons to be these horrible places where criminals get stuck to manufacture yet more crimes against each other, but that's not the law and it's not justice much either for that matter. As I'm interpreting her sentence, she's in for life because she's nuts. That means as far as the law is concerned she's essentially an incompetent puppet of her shitty brain chemistry or whatever. If you wanted to punish her, you'd have to punish her crazy; and since you're not punishing her because that's not what we do (not being complete savages) the whole trick of incarceration is somehow hoping you can fix her head so you can fulfill the goal of getting rid of the "evil actor" inside of her that made her a danger to society. If that means cutting off her dick and she's on board with that? Who am I to judge?

I am mostly baffled about why the state is paying for it.

I mean, I wished I looked like Gemma Ward but I wouldn't expect anyone else to pay for my theoretical plastic-surgery.
Perhaps if I went on a Gemma Ward killing spree...

The state pays for it because it's deemed essential medical care because A. the state diagnosis of her severe gender disassociation and B. because the state is responsible for all medical care of prisoners. If you had cancer, the state's responsible for that medical care once you're a prisoner, and all sorts of prisoners are getting "free" therapy so they're not stark raving bonkers or addicts or whatever once we release them to society. There was a point where the state regarded expert tried to make the case that gender reassignment was never medically necessary, listed in the judge's brief, but apparently that's at odds with every other expert the state of Massachusetts uses as a baseline for medical care - and the judge obviously stripped that expert of his regard in part because A. that expert's insistence that prison life wasn't "real life" (the judge flatly states that as a prisoner for life, whatever existence they get in prison is as "real" as they're ever going to get) and B. the expert sounds as if he must have made a financial case for providing care, which probably sounded a little like "we'd cure this person of the fixable thing that they suffer from, except my buddies in the prison system say it would cost money, and what the hell, they're just a criminal." That's essentially the case that the OP is making, but it's entirely at odds with the legal system and the standards of expected care the government's supposed to provide.

I'm going to be in the minority here, and sort of agree with jthm. However, I don't see the connection between this man and transgendered people in general, just because he is one transgendered man doesn't mean he at all represents all transgendered people. I don't see how this one guy is stereotyping all transgenders, and I don't think that anyone is going to judge all transgenders based on this guy.

That said, I do agree that we shouldn't be paying for his gender reassignment surgery with our tax dollars. Perhaps my point of view is different, because I'm an atheist and I don't believe in any kind of afterlife. I feel like this one life is all we have, so when a murderer takes an innocent person's life, that's an act so vile, so cruel, so hideously awful, and so tragic in its finality, that person deserves nothing but punishment. Not rehabilitation, no luxuries, and no right to enjoy the rest of his or her life. I think our only responsibility to a person so twisted and cruel that they could willingly take the life of an innocent, is just to do the bare minimum to keep them alive... and I'm not even sure they deserve that much. So yeah, cancer treatment, emergency care, that kind of thing, I can reluctantly agree with, but gender re-assignment, so that he can feel happy with himself? So he doesn't have to be depressed? No, absolutely not. He's not going to croak if he doesn't get the surgery, so I say NO! He should hate himself, and he should be depressed. At least he's around to feel such emotions, which is more than I can say for his victim!

Well, I think the prison system here is pretty messed up anyway. I can't believe we actually give prisoners a weight room and workout equipment. So they can work out and become bigger, buffer, and tougher when they get out. Really? We ought to be stuffing them full of potato chips and making them watch teletubbies on TV all day so that when they get out, they're too fat and lazy to hurt anyone.

He is if he's suicidal enough over it to try and kill himself, if he's successful at any point. As far as I'm concerned, if someone's in prison and has not not been sentenced to the death penalty (which I don't agree with) it is the state's (country's, if outside the USA) responsibility to keep them alive and as healthy as possible, even if they feel like they want to die or make attempts on their life for whatever reason. Even if they have been sentenced to death, it's the state's/country's responsibility to keep them alive and as healthy as possible until they have exhausted their appeals and are executed.



He's a murderer. He should hate what he did. He should be filled with regret and guilt and a desire to do whatever he can to compensate for his actions, though obviously he can never bring back the woman he murdered. But he shouldn't be left hating himself because he suffers from gender identity disorder. The point of prison isn't to make inmates hate themselves as much as possible, for any and every reason anyone can think of. The point of prison is to try to rehabilitate people before they're released and/or keep them somewhere where they can't harm anybody else (or at least anybody else who's not in jail). I don't think prisoners should be depressed. I suffer from depression, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody. It's a mental health problem, not a state of mind based on past experiences and regrets.

In my opinion, the fact he killed his wife pretty much trumps everything else. That's what he should be punished for, and giving him something he wanted in the first place doesn't really count as a punishment. If they had wanted to keep him from committing suicide or castrating himself, then they could have put him in a facility that would prevent him from doing so. Giving him medical help of any sort is a good idea, but he still needs to see that what he did was a crime no matter what the reason.

Why didn't she get the gender reassignment back when she was a non-murderer? Probably because she couldn't pay for it and insurance wouldn't cover it.
I love this country.<= sarcasm

Well, he is serving life in prison. Wouldn't that make him see that what he did was a crime?



Yup, that's quite possibly true. But that doesn't make me think that it's wrong/immoral/unethical that she got the gender reassignment whilst in prison, but rather that it's wrong that it wasn't available to her earlier and that it's not acceptable that people can be refused medical treatment because of the cost.

I am aware that that is the case all over the world for one reason or another, but that doesn't mean I have to approve of it!

PS: I'm not sure if I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you here, by the way, I wasn't entirely sure from reading your post....

If he killed himself, he would be doing society a favor. The only reason I have doubts about the death penalty, is that occasionally, an innocent person finds themselves on death row. I'd rather let a guilty person go free than to mistakenly execute an innocent person. If there were some foolproof, 100% reliable way to guarantee only guilty people were put to death, I would be all for it.



I don't believe in rehabilitation when a person has committed a violent crime of this magnitude. Murder of an innocent person is an act so heinous, there should be NO coming back from it. When an innocent person is wiped off the face of this planet forever, I think the person who is so heartless, so sick and demented, that they would do such a thing, should suffer for the rest of his life a life that is not worth living. Prisoners should be depressed, at the very least! They should wish they were never born, live every day with regret! I believe the purpose of prison for such a despicable individual is to be punitive, to send a message to others that, "if you commit such vile acts against others, you will pay the consequences". They should NOT be able to enjoy luxuries in life such as happiness or contentment. When a killer takes away the life of an innocent victim, he should also consider that act as throwing away his own life. Just as the victim's life was eradicated forever, the killer should also be able to consider his life as eradicated forever.



Just about everyone in prison knew what they were about to do was a crime before they did it. Knowing the difference between right and wrong has never been a crime deterrent.

My point, such as it was, was only that people were saying that she deserved proper care in prison which I agree with, but outside of prison, USAers often don't get proper care nor are they entitled to it. That's the way it is. I read the article and she had to sue the state to get the gender reassignment - so it wasn't guaranteed in prison either.
I think I agree with Mistermook's point that now she can be transferred to a women's prison.

That's a lovely sentiment, but it just doesn't hold water. As I repeat over and over here, people are complicated.

What if you intended to kill someone righteously (in self defense, whatever) but you kill the wrong person? By your token, that person made a mistake, therefore they're to be punished forever for it. They might even be the real victim, suffering at the hands of the true villain, but because they've got poor aim? Nope, off to prison forever for you.

What about people who aren't in complete control of themselves? This is a big one, because people are very often not in complete control over themselves - whether it's because they're a minor (and thus the responsible actor over their lives is their guardian) or incompetent (which can mean everything from being batshit crazy to just "so justifiably enraged" that they get a nod because everyone in the country goes "well, I'd kill that guy too.") You'd be putting the guy who murdered his daughter's rapist into prison forever, because even if he caught the rapist in the act he'd still be legally innocent because dead people don't have trials for things like this. You'd be putting the ten year old who picked up his parent's gun and shot a playmate in prison forever, or the lady so schizophrenic that she thought she was killing Nazi Aliens from Mars that were coming to harvest her brain.

And you'd probably grab a few thousand more folks who probably don't actually deserve to be in prison forever that also have circumstances that don't fit your narrow view of right and wrong that I'm not thinking of, because I can't think of all the circumstances of justifiable homicide either. No one can, which is why we have jury trials and not computer programs that input crimes and output sentences.

Again, the actual literature on this person's crime mentioned in the OP is kind of bare, but basically from what I can gather it goes like this:

The transgendered guy was living with his wife and son in the early 90s, but at night it sounds like he was drinking a lot and dressing in women's clothing. Pop psychology me says "lots of self hate" which he probably transferred onto his wife who he then strangled. There was also some statements and evidence consistent with his wife "attacking him with a pot of boiling water" prior to her murder, along with some suggestions that the wife was also abusive. That doesn't justify (and certainly didn't during trial) the murder, but it does provide some sort of bread crumbs about what might have been going on - an unhappy household with a husband filled with self-loathing and booze, a wife unhappy with her transgendered husband taking it out on both the husband and child, and the transgendered husband finally snapping and acting with premeditation to kill her? Court documents online don't provide testimony or interrogation notes. In any case, while I wouldn't recommend anyone marrying him, it sounds like the main instigator of his crime was his unhappiness with either his gender, alcoholism, or his relationship with his wife/women as a man.

So I'm going to temper my notion of "safer in women's prison" with the idea that perhaps he will be more of a danger to women prisoners than men, but then respond to that myself by noting that it's probably easier to protect a prison population from one person than a single person from an entire prison population. At this point I'm not even sure if I'm completely on board with this lady being in prison for life even though, because it sounds like with a gender reassignment surgery, kicking booze, and lots and lots of therapy they might be fairly normal folks capable of living safely within the bounds of society eventually.

I was going to say that even the people in prison are still people and deserve basic human rights, although I kinda thought the point that all people are people shouldn't have to be made. So, instead, I'll just say this.

Despite what many people may think, health is not a privilege if we have the tools to help someone. In this case, we do. It saddens me to think that there are far too many people who think like JTHM, as it's not to uncommon for people working the prisons to deny inmates medicine. A person with severe schizophrenia's problems aren't as visual as a person with an arm chopped off, so mental health tends to get ignored. Hell, physical health sometimes gets ignored too. Do you know how common lice outbreaks are in prison?

Aha. I thought it was but I wasn't sure if your point of view was that people in prison shouldn't get medical care that people outside of prison can't afford or if your point of view was that all people should get the medical care that they need, whether or not they're in prison. I agree with you, basically :-)