Lawsuit asks state to pay for inmate's sex-change operation
Lyralisa Stevens says she is harassed and sexually assaulted by male prisoners, and needs surgery to be assigned to a women's prison. State officials say they aren't required to provide that level of care.
Thomas Strawn, a transgender inmate who goes by the name Lisa, applies eyeliner inside her cell. She says she is in a committed relationship with a man in the next cell and would not want to be transferred to a women's prison. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
|
April 19, 2011, 6:02 p.m.
Lyralisa Stevens, who was born male but lives as a female, is serving 50 years to life in a California prison for killing a San Bernardino County woman with a shotgun in a dispute over clothes.
Stevens is one of more than 300 inmates in the state prison system diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, a psychiatric condition addressed in free society with hormone replacement therapy and, in some cases, sex reassignment surgery.
Prison officials have provided female hormones for Stevens since her incarceration in 2003. But now she is asking the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco to require the state to pay for a sex-change operation.
Stevens, 42, and her expert witnesses say that surgery is medically necessary, and that removal of her penis and testicles and transfer to a women's prison are the best way to protect her from rape and abuse by male inmates.
As prison officials have struggled to address chronic overcrowding, the constant threat of gang violence and a health system that federal judges have equated with "cruel and unusual" punishment, they have also gone to court multiple times to answer allegations that they failed to properly treat and protect transgender inmates.
Judges have sided with transgender prisoners — who according to a UC Irvine study are 13 times more likely to suffer sexual assault than other inmates — on some significant cases. In 2009, the California Supreme Court ruled that an inmate could sue guards for failing to protect her from repeated rapes and beatings by her cellmate. In 1999, an appeals court ordered prison officials to provide hormone therapy to inmates who were already taking them when they arrived. The treatments cost about $1,000 a year per prisoner.
A ruling in Stevens' favor would make California the first place in the country required to provide reassignment surgery for an inmate, according to lawyers for the receiver appointed to oversee California's troubled prison health system. They argue that the state should be required to provide only "minimally adequate care," not sex-change operations that cost $15,000 to $50,000.
Stevens, who has a slight build — 5-foot-6 and about 115 pounds — and entered prison with silicon injections in her breasts and hips to feminize her physique, said in a court filing that she feels like she's under threat of sexual assault in the men's facility and wants the surgery, in part, so she'll be sent to a women's institution.
"The male inmate is not expecting to see breasts … in the shower next to him," Stevens wrote. The situation can lead to violent disputes among the men and sparks attacks against transgender inmates, who may have less upper body strength because of the hormone therapy, Stevens said.
In a court filing supporting Stevens' petition, psychotherapist Lin Fraser said she has "grave concerns" for Stevens' safety because she "had been put alone in cells all night long with men who threatened and abused her."
State law requires prisons to assign inmates to men's or women's institutions based on "gender," which corrections officials determine solely by a prisoner's genitals. Richard Masbruch, who tried multiple times to castrate himself while in a Texas prison and eventually succeeded, is in the California Institution for Women inChino. Masbruch, who goes by the name Sherri, was transferred from Texas to serve 40 years for a 1991 rape in Fresno.
While confronting complaints and lawsuits by transgender inmates challenging their housing assignments during the mid-2000s, the California prison system commissioned a study by UC Irvine sociologists to help them understand the small, uniquely vulnerable population. The study found that 59% of transgender inmates said they had been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted behind bars, compared with 4.4% of the general prison population, lead researcher Valerie Jenness told the state Senate Public Safety Committee.
Despite those numbers, 59% of transgender inmates said they did not want to move to a women's institution.
"The advantages of being in a men's prison include the pursuit of sex and the possibility of securing a male partner," Jenness said. "Concern about safety is not a main factor in predicting [housing] preferences."
Stevens declined to join a group of transgender inmates interviewed by The Times recently at the prison system's main medical facility in Vacaville. But six others — of the 30 to 50 transgender inmates housed there at any given time — spoke candidly about their lives in prison.
Thomas Strawn, 52, who uses the name Lisa and is serving a life sentence after a third-strike conviction for burglary, said she is in a committed relationship with the man in the next cell and would not want to move.
"I stayed single for an entire year when I got here," Strawn said. "But now I got with somebody and I've been with him now two years."
Others, such as convicted killer David, or Bella, Birrell, 58, who said she had been raped in prison, would like to be transferred to a women's facility. "You don't have to worry about the constant harassment like you get from the men here," she said.
Only two of the six said they would be interested in a sex change operation if a court order compelled the state to pay the costs.
"I had made plans to try to get [the surgery] done before I committed the crime that I did," said Steve Alamillo, 39, who goes by Nikkas and is serving life for first-degree murder. "If the state can do that stuff, absolutely."
Willie Murphy, 47, who is also known as Mena and is serving life on a third-strike conviction for burglary, was among the majority, preferring to "keep what I got."
Surgery is where the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation draws the line.
"A prison is not required by law to give a prisoner medical care that is as good as he would receive if he were a free person, let alone an affluent free person," attorney Steven J. Bechtold, who represents the receiver, wrote in the state's response to Stevens' petition for the operation.
The prison system has lost on a similar point before. The state provides hormone therapy today because a federal court found in a 1999 case that failing to continue treatment for inmates who were on hormones before coming to prison amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
"We regularly get questions about why we are treating these patients," said Dr. Joseph Bick, chief medical officer at Vacaville. "The bottom line is, not only is it appropriate, but it's mandated by federal courts."
Stevens, who has fathered three children, argues in her court case that the tail of estrogen and testosterone-blockers the state has provided since her incarceration in 2003 are no longer adequate to combat her emotional distress. Failing to provide surgery could increase her "risk of future self-harm," wrote Dr. Denise Taylor, a medical expert who filed a brief on Stevens' behalf.
Taylor also argued that leaving Stevens on estrogen therapy could lead to the reemergence of a benign tumor removed from her brain in 2005.
Bick, who filed a declaration with the court in January defending the state's position, said the previous tumor was not believed to be caused by estrogen therapy. He said Stevens' treatment in prison has been "adequate and successful."
Perhaps the biggest threat to Stevens' case is the state's budget crisis, in the view of several transgender inmates interviewed. They worried that a judge might be reluctant to rule in her favor with the state facing hard times.
"If I were out there, I wouldn't understand, especially if I was unemployed or trying to support a family," Birrell said.
"But if you could only go into our heads for a day or two to see what we go through internally," she said, "you would get a greater appreciation of how devastating it is to be a transgender individual locked up in a man's prison."
LINK TO PHOTO OF LYRALISA STEVENS:
April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008