Culture

Supreme Court Declines Appeal of Idaho Inmate’s Historic Trans Surgery


 

The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a trans woman’s historic confirmation surgery, which marked just the second time in U.S. history that a transgender person has had gender-affirming surgery in prison.

On Tuesday, the nation’s highest bench denied a review of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit’s 2019 ruling in the case of Adree Edmo, a 32-year-old inmate who was incarcerated in 2012. The State of Idaho fought Edmo’s request for gender confirmation surgery to treat her gender dysphoria, which had led her to attempt self-castration.

Edmo underwent the procedure in July after the Supreme Court upheld the appeals court ruling allowing her surgery to move forward. The lone dissenters in the 7-2 verdict were Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., the same justices who, incidentally, issued a written opinion last week calling on SCOTUS to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, its 2015 ruling legalizing marriage equality.

After her recovery, Edmo was transferred to a women’s lockup facility in Pocatello, according to Boise State Public Radio. It was the first time in Idaho’s history that a transgender woman was relocated to a women’s prison as the result of a court order.

But the state of Idaho has continued fighting the ruling, even following the Supreme Court’s earlier dismissal of the case. In filing a writ of certiorari calling on SCOTUS to rethink its position, Gov. Brad Little claimed in a statement that the “taxpayers of Idaho should not have to pay for a procedure that is not medically necessary.”

“From the start, this appeal was about defending taxpayers and I will continue to do so,” Little said.

But as others have noted, Edmo’s surgery cost just $75,000, and those fees were covered by the Idaho Department of Correction’s plan under Corizon Health, a Tennessee-based prison health contractor. Meanwhile, Idaho has paid out $456,738 in legal fees as a result of the ongoing litigation in Edmo’s case.

The state is also in the process of defending a pair of anti-trans laws passed in March: one which bans trans people from correcting their birth certificates and another which prohibits transgender female students from participating in school athletics in accordance with their gender identity. Both of those laws have been met with injunctions and are facing lawsuits seeking to overturn them.

The Supreme Court did not issue a written statement accompanying its denial of Idaho’s writ of certiorari. Edmo is set for release in July 2021.

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