TWELVE convicts in a male sex offenders’ jail plan to have gender swaps, with taxpayers footing the £168,000 bill.

The inmates already wear women’s clothes and make-up chosen from catalogues and have their own shower facilities.

2 Following their gender ops, the inmates would leave HMP Littlehey, a prison for male sex offenders Credit: Andrew Parsons

They are held at 1,200-inmate HMP Littlehey and would be transferred to a women’s prison after surgery.

All are on the NHS’s Transgender Pathway and must pass psychological tests to show they genuinely want to live as a female.

The aim is to root out prisoners who believe a gender swap will lead to special treatment behind bars.

Hormone treatment will follow before the £14,000 sex change surgery.

2 The £14k gender reassignment operations will be followed by hormone treatment Credit: Getty - Contributor

The prison, near Huntingdon, Cambs, has previously received complaints from transgender lags about delays in getting female clothing, cosmetics and toiletries.

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Prison chiefs set up a “shop” for them to browse catalogues but an Independent Monitoring Board report hit out as inmates did not have access to an Avon brochure and canteen orders “to enable them to live in their chosen gender.”

A government spokesman said yesterday: “Sex offenders face strict punishment for their crimes and can quite rightly expect go straight to prison.

“Any person applying to be on the Transgender Pathway is assessed by a range of healthcare professionals, regardless of whether they are in prison or not.”

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