Boo hoo, this person didn't get special treatment in prison

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http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/crime ... 011984.php

Did you post this for any particular reason?

I see two very important legal principles that are at stake here:

First, what is the appropriate standard of care that is to be provided to prisoners. Prisoners are in a different legal situation than other individuals because they depend entirely upon the State for their necessities of life. They do not have the opportunity to make choices about where to obtain care or how that care is to be delivered. To what extent are physicians who work for the prison system obliged to subordinate their own professional judgement to the policy decisions of their employers or the legislature?

Second, and what is particuarly relevant to this forum, is what is the standard of medical necessity for transgender individuals. If we subscribe to the finding that gender dysphoria is a real condition that merits medical intervention, then it is not an enormous logical leap to find that gender reassignment surgery may well be medically necessary is some, if not most cases.

I take the view that if a physician has decided that treatment is medically necessary, and that decision is consistent with the ethical and professional standards of the medical profession, then that decision ought properly to be binding upon the state when it comes to the provision of services to individuals for whom the state is responsible. In this particular case there is some question as to whether the decision that use of a vaginal stent was medically necessary, but I have a great deal of difficulty in understanding how a physician could come to that decision without interference from non-medical decision makers.

This study, which I do not have a full copy of, suggests that it really could go either way whether it should be funded:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21132536

The best answer is that it basically just depends on the insurer (in cases of private third-party funding) or the polity (in cases of public third-party funding), the willingness of either to fund it.

Keep it up with your startling empathy skills.

Special treatment?
ALL prisoners deserve adequate medical treatment there's no "special treatment" in that.

"The stent was medically necessary, she said, to prevent closure and loss of tissue. Not using the stent, she told them, could result in medical complications that could require a second, costly surgery."

"About nine months into her incarceration, Allen told the facility's medical staff that she was in pain and was experiencing vaginal bleeding."

She was not given adequate medical treatment. Medical treatment is not special treatment. People only seem to think that when it's trans people's medical treatment. If a cisgender woman required a medical device to stop damage to her genitals and the prison officials didn't let her have it and that resulted in pain and bleeding and loss of tissue that meant she needed reconstructive surgery, I doubt anyone would disagree that this is mistreatment and she deserves proper medical treatment even if she's a prisoner.

The doctors said she didn't need it and the prison officials said there were security concerns with it. Sometimes you gotta learn that everything doesn't go your way.

Also, I find her claims of bleeding and the like suspicious. Generally, if you don't use the stints, neovaginal stenosis (i.e. closing of the neovagina) is the result, as the body considers the neovagina as a wound to be closed. I don't see why prevention of neovaginal stenosis should really be a priority of the prison system if there are other overriding concerns, such as security. I also don't see the medical necessity of it, so I agree with the prison's doctors. I also think she's exaggerating her signs and symptoms trying to find sympathy.

Uh, maybe because she ended up having to use friggin' tampons to try and keep her genitalia intact? You know, those dry, scratchy, fibrous, toxicity-prone timebombs that only work because they're supposed to go in vaginas that already have blood flowing out? Or whatever else she could find (that was probably nowhere near sterilizable as a proper stent) to help her keep her genitalia from literally disappearing from her body? I don't know about you, but most people faced with that prospect would see it a medical necessity.

As far as a security concern, I'm pretty sure you can get solid plastic stents, and they're generally lightweight, since they're designed to just stay in and be as unobtrusive as possible. I don't know what other concern there could possibly be, aside from another inmate stealing it, but that's a risk with most any physical object (I can come up with some alternative uses for dentures, toothbrushes and flip flops) so I don't see the reason for the special exception. Were prosthetic arms and legs allowed? If so, then the stent should have been allowed. End of story.