The same old story…
Maybe you’ve already heard about Kitty Grey. Or Sabrina Trujillo. Maybe you haven’t. If you haven’t, it’s something you’ve heard before: A transgendered person who is incarcerated and wants SRS.
I hear about stories like this several times a year. And I always cringe: I feel like I should be sympathetic, and supportive of people like Kitty. Prison is not a good place to be in the first place, and to be transgendered and incarcerated with all kinds of monsters has to be worse. I can imagine that TGs get traded around like a commodity behind bars. No-one should have to suffer sexual slavery. (Unless of course, they’re into that sort of thing.)Â
And to deny Kitty the surgery she needs to be a healthy human being? That seems to border on “cruel and unusual punishment”.Â
But, on the other hand, who put Kitty and Sabrina where they are today? They did when they committed the crimes. And honestly? I can’t muster a whole lot of sympathy for someone who molested a child. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.Â
Why should taxpayers have to shell out the dough to pay for SRS? We’re already paying for HRT in many cases. And can it not be argued that if we do pay for SRS of prisoners, someone at the end of their rope will commit a crime and surrender in hopes of getting the surgery? (Don’t doubt this could happen. You and I both know there are those among us crazy enough to try it.)
Am I wrong? Am I cold and heartless?Â
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Ronnie Rho has been writing for Transgender Forum since May of 1999. One of these days, she'll get it right. She's been described as the "world's most famous recluse," but only by people who don't know her very well. She is unmarried, and lives in Cincinnati.Subscribe
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My opinion on this is simple. If transgender people on the outside arent getting their surgeries paid for by insurance companies or by the taxpayers and have to pay for it out of pocket, then the same should be true for those who are incarcerated. Or perhaps they should wait until they have paid their debt to society and then fight the good fight out here like the rest of us. I mean, if there is precedence of transgender people getting their surgeries paid for while they are in jail then who’s to stop some sort of rush for tg people to get into jail so they can have their surgery done? Sounds silly doesnt it? And yet i’ll bet it would happen. I know of tg people selling their bodies to save up the money to have their surgery and there are others working two and three jobs and killing themselves slowly and getting cut up by monsters claiming to have experience all in the name of feeling right. If it becomes as easy as committing a crime to get your surgery done by the government then that is what will happen. We have a hard enough time fighting stereotypes and having people look upon us as criminals and low lifes, we dont need tg’s right and left getting incarcerated so they can have their surgery. lets be realistic about this and show that we have more common sense than people give us credit for.
I think you have your fingers on the pulse properly.