SALT LAKE CITY — Five transgender inmates have filed a lawsuit against the Utah Department of Corrections and the Utah Department of Health & Human Services, challenging a new state law that bans medical treatment for them while incarcerated.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Salt Lake City earlier this week, accuses Utah’s prison system of instituting a “blanket ban on the initiation of hormone therapy without any consideration of Plaintiffs’ individualized medical needs and the medical judgment of Defendants’ own medical providers.”
The inmates, Virginia Tucker, Stephanie Dombroski, Sandy Phillips, Dakota Grunwald, and Amberli K. Morrigan, have demanded access to prescribed hormone therapies and gender reassignment surgeries. The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah and Lambda Legal, which are representing the inmates, allege in the lawsuit that Utah's new law violates the Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Defendants have denied or limited Plaintiffs’ equal access to healthcare by, among other things, providing a lack of timely and accurate assessments, and failing to provide condition-specific mental health services, hormone therapy, and individualized assessments of the need for surgery, all due to disability or suspected disability of gender dysphoria,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants single out this particular disability, gender dysphoria, for unequal and discriminatory treatment. Defendants do not deny or limit these treatments as to other suspected medical impairments and disabilities.”
The Utah State Legislature passed House Bill 252 earlier this year, which instituted the restrictions on transgender inmates. In a statement to FOX 13 News, Lambda Legal said U.S. Supreme Court rulings have found the U.S. Constitution prohibits prison systems from denying adequate care to all incarcerated people.
“They single out only transgender people with gender dysphoria—the clinical distress experienced because of a difference between a person’s sex assigned at birth and gender identity—for denial of care,” said Sonja Kerr, an attorney with Lambda Legal.
“Our clients are suffering because the state has chosen to prohibit medically necessary care for the treatment of a validly recognized medical condition, regardless of their individual need,” Abby Cook, an attorney for the ACLU of Utah, said in a statement. “We are challenging HB252 and Defendants’ policies to ensure that all transgender people receive the healthcare that the U.S. Constitution requires and are protected from unlawful discrimination.”
The Utah Department of Corrections did not immediately have a comment on the lawsuit. The Utah Department of Health & Human Services declined to comment on the pending litigation.
