Murderer Wants State-Funded Sex Change

Sept. 15, 2006 — -- When Michelle Kosilek was convicted of murder in 1993, she wasn't known as Michelle.

She was Robert and was sentenced as Robert to life without the possibility of parole for strangling his wife. While in prison, Kosilek, a self-identified transgendered woman, legally changed her name. Later, Kosilek also had her gender condition recognized by the court.

Now, Kosilek, 57, an inmate at a maximum security all-male prison in Norfolk, Mass., would like the Massachusetts Department of Corrections to pay for her sex-reassignment surgery.

Today, many legal and medical experts are getting behind her petition for a full sex change operation, citing the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The decision now lies in U.S. District Court in Boston.

In 2002, Kosilek successfully petitioned the court to allow hormone treatment to facilitate female sex characteristics. Since the ruling, Kosilek also is permitted to receive electrolysis for the removal of facial hair as well as limited access to some female apparel and makeup.

Judge Mark Wolf ruled in the case that Kosilek did have a medical condition, in this case Gender Identity Disorder (GID), that was not being properly treated.

The recommended treatment at the time was hormone therapy, but Kosilek now says that is not enough and that if she is not able to undergo surgery, she will kill herself. Kosilek has already admitted an attempt at self-castration, ABC News has confirmed.

Transgender activists support Kosilek's lawsuit as a precedent-setting event, but note that transgendered inmates still need to be treated on a case-by case basis.

"Of course I have absolutely no sympathy for this person on a personal level," said Shannon Minter, spokeswoman for the Transgender Law and Policy Institute and editor of the new book "Transgender Rights." "I think that with any transgender person there has to be an individual medical assessment. But for many, if not most, surgery is medically necessary."

Dr. Marshall Forstein, a psychiatrist who has treated more than 100 transgender individuals, believes that surgery is medically necessary in Kosilek's case.