Massachusetts prison officials are appealing a court decision that entitles an inmate to a publicly funded sex-change operation.

The state’s department of correction said on Friday it would request an appeal hearing in front of the full six-judge first circuit court of appeals for the case of Michelle Kosilek, who has campaigned for sex-reassignment surgery since 1992.

Kosilek, 64, was born Robert Kosilek and is serving a life sentence for the murder of spouse Cheryl Kosilek in 1990.

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel in the same court upheld a ruling that granted Kosilek’s request for sex-reassignment surgery. The panel said courts must enforce the rights of all people, including prisoners.

“And receiving medically necessary treatment is one of those rights, even if that treatment strikes some as odd or unorthodox,” the court said.

Kosilek lost her first case against prison officials, then in September 2012 successfully sued Massachusetts for her right to psychotherapy, hormone therapy and electrolysis. Chief US district judge Mark Wolf ruled that denying Kosilek the surgery violated her eighth-amendment rights, which bar cruel and unusual punishment.

In January, the appeals court voted 2-1 in favor of Kosilek. Judge Juan Torruella said in his dissent that he believed Wolf had overreached when he said the state’s refusal to provide the sex-reassignment surgery violated Kosilek’s constitutional rights.

Torruella said the eighth amendment forbids unconscionable medical care.

“Its boundary simply does not reach, however, to instances of care that, although not ideal, illustrate neither an intent to harm nor the obstinate and unwarranted application of clearly imprudent care,” Torruella said. “Respectfully, I would reverse.”

On Tuesday, Kosilek’s lawyers filed a motion asking the department of correction to provide the surgery “as soon as possible”. If the state provides the surgery, it would be the first sex-reassignment surgery for a prisoner to be ordered by a court and funded by the state.

At state-operated prisons, access to hormone treatment and surgery varies. Several people who received hormone therapy before incarceration but were then denied it in prison have successfully sued for their right to the drugs.



Chelsea Manning, the US soldier convicted over WikiLeaks disclosure, said in October she would go to court in an effort to get treatment at the Fort Leavenworth military prison. Following Manning’s August announcement that she wanted to live as a woman, prison officials said they did not offer treatment aside from psychiatric services.