Prison healthcare litigation has been on the rise throughout the country. Private healthcare providers for state prison systems are often caught up in class actions or complex injunctive-relief litigation targeting both the provider and the state for alleged shortcomings in the types and adequacy of care provided, matters which are often a function of state funding and policy decisions. In recent years, an increasing number of cases have raised this question: Does the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution require prison officials to provide transgender inmates with sex-reassignment (or gender confirmation) surgery?
This constitutional and correctional healthcare issue has divided courts and prison systems. In 2017, after years of litigating the issue, the California Department of Corrections became the first state prison system to provide sex-reassignment surgery to an inmate: Shiloh Heavenly Quine, a convicted killer serving a life sentence. While there is a consensus among correctional healthcare professionals that gender dysphoria constitutes a serious medical need that requires appropriate treatment, most state prison systems continue to resist requests for sex-reassignment surgery.
Federal courts are also split on this issue, and the divide could soon deepen. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is poised to consider the issue in Edmo v. Idaho Department of Correction, an appeal from a federal...
