DOJ claims that the Utah corrections office discriminated against transgender women | The Hill
A sign marks an entrance to the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, Monday, Jan. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
The Utah Department of Corrections, according to the Justice Department, broke the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to provide a transgender woman hormone therapy.
A federal investigation found that the state corrections office discriminated against the person, who is not named in court documents, by denying her equitable access to health care services, imposing “unnecessary barriers” to care for gender dysphoria, and failing to provide her requests for reasonable accommodations, including allowing her to buy feminine clothes and makeup at the commissary.
Utah’s corrections department also “unnecessarily delayed” the woman’s treatment for her gender dysphoria, a condition with which she had “for many years” before entering the department’s custody in 2021, according to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) findings.
Federal investigators discovered that the woman had gender dysphoria, a state of severe distress caused by a mismatch between a person’s gender identity and the sex assigned at birth, and that a health care provider contracted by the state corrections department made the diagnosis.
Unlike various requests for health treatment, which are usually directed to the state corrections agency’s medical team, a request for treatment for gender dysphoria is sent to the department’s gender dysphoria committee, which national investigators described as the “gatekeeper” of care.
Members of the committee who displayed “overt bias” toward transgender people seeking care and who resisted the Justice Department’s recommendation to prescribe medication for gender dysphoria, including hormone therapy, were members of the committee while the woman was incarcerated, according to the Justice Department.
“Complainant’s access to medically necessary care for her disability was unnecessarily delayed due to] the Utah Corrections Department’s ] biased and prolonged approval process,” DOJ Disability Rights Chief Rebecca Bond wrote Tuesday in a letter to Brian Redd, executive director of Utah’s corrections department.
It took the department more than 15 months to prescribe the woman hormones, Bond said, despite her repeated follow-up requests and grievances.
Federal investigators discovered that the state corrections department, which ultimately allowed the woman to begin treatment, failed to administer her hormones safely and appropriately. Her physician, for instance, did not conduct routine laboratory testing to make sure the medication did not interfere with her other prescriptions, or to confirm that her dose levels were effective.
The department denied the woman’s additional requests to purchase gender-affirming clothing at the commissary and be given female housing. Federal investigators said that ADA requests made to the department went unanswered or were rejected.
“The prison is causing me such mental stress,” the woman wrote in her ADA complaint, “By not allowing me this opportunity to live my life as a woman, who I believe I am and have lived life for many years.”
A federal court ruled in 2022 that gender dysphoria is covered by the ADA. In June, the Supreme Court upheld that decision.
“A prison controls most of an incarcerated person’s life, including their ability to live comfortably with their gender identity, and many aspects of their access to healthcare. Here, based on bias and indifference to her serious health needs,] the Utah Department of Corrections ] failed to provide Complainant with equal access to its health care services,” Bond wrote in Tuesday’s letter to Redd.
The state corrections department’s “failures had severe consequences,” Bond said. After spending nearly two years in custody without having access to adequate gender-affirming healthcare, the woman performed a risky self-surgery to remove her own testicles in May.
On Tuesday, the DOJ demanded that Utah’s corrections department take corrective steps to safeguard other transgender prisoners. The state corrections department will also be required to pay the woman for damages, though a dollar amount has not yet been determined.
In an emailed statement, Redd, the department’s executive director, said the department was “blindsided” by the Justice Department’s announcement.
“We have been working to address this complex issue,” he said. “We fundamentally disagree with the DOJ on important issues, and we are disappointed by their strategy.”
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