Robert Kosilek strangled his wife Cheryl in 1990. He never denied it.
Twenty years later, by then known as Michelle, she sued the state of Massachusetts, claiming that denying her sex-reassignment surgery violated her rights as an inmate. By 2002, she had already obtained hormone treatment paid for by the prison system. On September 4, 2012, federal judge Mark Wolf went further: he ordered the state to pay for the complete operation, citing a “serious medical need” and the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Prison authorities had warned of security risks to Kosilek herself inside the prison. None of that stopped the ruling. Cheryl’s family erupted in outrage: taxpayers’ money funding the welfare of the person who took their daughter’s life. The case was appealed and, years later, overturned by higher courts, but the precedent had already shaken the entire country.
