by WorldTribune Staff, December 31, 2020
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections can’t deny transgender surgery to a man convicted of raping his 10-year-old daughter, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge James Peterson approved the request of Mark Allen Campbell, a 49-year-old Wisconsin man who identifies as female and goes by the name “Nicole Rose,” to undergo transgender surgery at taxpayer expense, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.
The ruling also means Wisconsin will put Campbell in a women’s prison.
In 2007, Campbell was sentenced to 34-years in prison for the sexual assault of a child. According to the criminal complaint, Campbell’s 10-year-old daughter told investigators that her father had raped her, masturbated in front of her, used sex toys with her, and exposed her to pornography.
Campbell reportedly did not begin identifying as female until six years after he was incarcerated.
Judge Peterson ruled that Campbell must be eligible to receive transgender surgery at taxpayer expense.
“The rights of transgender persons and sex reassignment surgery remain politically controversial, even outside the prison context. And some members of the public are outraged at any effort to improve the health and well being of inmates,” Peterson wrote. “But the true public interest lies in alleviating needless suffering by those who are dependent on the government for their care.”
Analysts say there is no evidence that transgender surgery improves the mental health outcomes of so-called “gender dysphoric” people.
“The largest dataset on sex-reassignment procedures — both hormonal and surgical — reveals that such procedures do not bring the promised mental health benefits,” researcher Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., noted in an August analysis for The Heritage Foundation.
The American Journal of Psychiatry noted that “individuals diagnosed with gender incongruence who had received gender-affirming surgery were more likely to be treated for anxiety disorders compared with individuals diagnosed with gender incongruence who had not received gender-affirming surgery.”
Campbell sued the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) in 2016 after it denied him the surgery. The convicted child rapist argued that the state violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.
The DOC had already allowed Campbell to dress as a woman, receive cross-sex hormones, and get counseling at Racine Correctional Institute, the men’s prison where he resides.
The DOC requested that, if Judge Peterson ordered the state to allow the surgery, he first require Campbell to live for a year at Taycheedah Correctional Institution, the state’s largest women’s prison.
“That request came as a surprise, because previously the DOC designated any inmate with a penis to a male prison, regardless of gender identity or expression,” Peterson wrote. “I decline to impose any further prerequisites on Campbell’s sex reassignment surgery; she has waited long enough.”
According to the judge, only one surgeon in Wisconsin is qualified to perform the operation, and that surgeon must agree the procedure is necessary. Even after the order, Campbell may have to wait a year before the operation. The judge suggested DOC move Campbell to the women’s prison in the meantime.
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