Republicans Outraged That Trans Prisoners Now Have Access to Medically Necessary Care

Anti-LGBT Republicans in Texas areÂ up in arms about state prison officials’ decision to treat transgender prisoners more humanely â€” and potentially avoid lawsuits â€” by offering them easier access to hormone therapy.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice recently updatedÂ its policy on trans healthcare, according to a reportÂ from The Texas Observer. Under the previous policy,Â hormone therapy was available only to prisoners who were already undergoing it before being incarcerated. Now, trans prisoners who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria while in Texas prisons areÂ also eligible for hormone therapy, which consists of estrogen for trans women and testosterone for trans men.Â

In recent years, federal courts have ruled that denying trans inmates medically necessary care, including hormone therapy, represents cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Moreover, studies have shown that the cost of offering trans healthcare is insignificant, and that those who receive it are at a much lower risk for suicide.Â

But GOP state Rep. Debbie Riddle, the author of anti-trans “bathroom” legislation in last year’s legislative session who later became the recipient of a glitter bomb, told Breitbart Texas that taxpayers should never pay to provide hormone therapy “or anything of that nature to prisoners with confusion regarding their gender identity.”Â

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“I suggest the confusion could be ended with a quick look in the mirror after a shower. Then, what they see, is what they are. End of story,” Riddle said. “Taxpayers are the folks getting taken to the cleaners and they are sick of the stupid stuff. This gender identity confusion is over the top. One group that is not confused is the hardworking taxpaying citizens that are trying to just pay their bills, rear their families, and put food on the table. The whole thing makes me furious.â€

Former Texas state Rep. Steve Toth, who’s now running for Congress, told BreitbartÂ the department’s new policy is an example of “political correctness running wild.”Â

“This is Texas, not New York or California, and for the state of Texas to be paying for a felon to receive hormone treatment for a sex change is commensurate with the lack of spine by our elected leaders,” Toth said.Â â€œThousands of veterans will go hungry and homeless tonight and the State of Texas is paying for a sex change.â€

No Texas prisoner has ever undergone gender reassignment surgery, which the Department of Criminal Justice considers to be an elective procedure.

Schell Carpenter, an Austin trans activist who heads the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, responded to Riddle’s statements in a column published by the Observer.Â

“It seems that any change in policy regarding the needs of people who are incarcerated is seen, by those who object to it, as providing comfort or even luxury to people whose actions have not earned any such benevolence,” Carpenter wrote. “But protection from cruel and unusual punishment is one of the oldest founding principles of our nation. Lawmakers like Riddle, who bloviate incessantly about patriotism and tradition, are taking a clearly un-American stance when they try to deny people access to medical care during incarceration.”

Despite the updated healthcare policy, Texas remains behind most states when it comes to its treatment of trans prisoners. LGBT advocates say they still routinely receive inquiries from trans prisoners in Texas who’ve been denied psychiatric evaluations that are needed to access hormone therapy.

Nell Gaither, president of Trans Pride Initiative, told the Observer that one prisoner who’s undergoing hormone therapy was denied a doctor-prescribed bra after she began developing breast tissue. According to Gaither, when the prisoner complained, she was sent to solitary confinement, where she attempted self-harm.

In 2014, Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuitÂ against Texas on behalf of a trans inmate, accusing state prison officials of deliberate indifference to threats of sexual assault and violence against her in male facilities.Â The lawsuit alleged that the inmate, Passion Star, had lodged dozens of grievances, complaints and requests to be placed in safekeeping, but instead of taking measures to protect her, prison officials told her to â€œsuck dick,â€ â€œfightâ€ or to stop â€œacting gayâ€ if she didn’t want to be assaulted.

On one occasion, when Star appealed to prison officials to protect her from a gang member who said he owned her, they responded by moving her even closer to the inmate, according to Lambda Legal. The next morning, the gang member attacked Star, calling her a â€œsnitching faggotâ€ and slashing her face eight times with a razor.Â

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Image: Screenshot viaÂ Debbie Riddle/YouTube