GayCityNews.com – By Arthur S. Leonard
A federal judge in Wisconsin has rejected an attempt to expand an existing suit challenging a new state law that forbids providing hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery for transgendered inmates at government expense.
A motion on behalf of two prospective plaintiffs would have expanded the lawsuit’s scope, and on August 7 US District Judge Charles N. Clevert, Jr., refused either to add them to the case or to allow the challenge to go forward as a class action on behalf of all transgendered inmates in Wisconsin state prisons.
Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit in early 2006 on behalf of five Wisconsin inmates, challenging the constitutionality of the state’s Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act of 2005, which bars the use of state or federal funds for hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery for transgendered inmates, except in the case of hormone therapy required to address life-threatening conditions.