This story was originally reported by Candice Norwood of The 19th. Meet Candice and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.
A group of incarcerated transgender women and men have sued Georgia corrections officials, challenging a new law that prevents them from receiving gender-affirming medical care. The lawsuit, filed Friday morning, accuses the state of violating the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Five transgender plaintiffs — two men and three women — brought the class action lawsuit on behalf of nearly 300 other people in Georgia state prisons, who argue that the state’s law will have “catastrophic consequences.” In some cases, it is forcing trans people who have already received hormone replacement therapy and other services for years to detransition without their consent.
“We are very much in the thick of seeing policies like this be adopted,” said Chinyere Ezie, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the lawsuit with co-counsel Bondurant Mixson & Elmore LLP. “It’s really unfortunate. I think that it has and will cost people’s lives. I think that the plan is to really just eradicate trans people from public life, to really — contrary to medicine — make the treatment of gender dysphoria a culture war, as opposed to a serious medical need that requires treatment.”
In May, Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed Senate Bill 185, a bill passed by the state’s majority conservative legislature that prohibits the use of state funds or resources for surgery, hormone replacement therapy, cosmetic procedures and other treatments used to address gender dysphoria. The law states explicitly that incarcerated people may still receive treatments like hormone replacement therapy if they are medically necessary for conditions other than gender dysphoria.