The unmitigated gall of some people. This case is one of those cases that really makes me a ambivalent. While I beleieve that certain accommodations should be made for gender variant individuals….you have to keep in mind that you are a ward of the state and the whole purpose of prison is to strip you of your rights.

So for a transsexual to go to jail (for murder) and then decide that she is ready to transition, seems a little opportunistic to me. At the most….she should be allowed to have hormone therapy and even that is being generous, considering the nature of her crime.

No to mention..,what good is the sex change going to do you you, if you are incarcerated for the rest of your life? To me this case only hurts those transgender individuals who are really in dire need of state/government assistance.

A cross-dressing Massachusetts inmate who murdered his wife and has spent the last decade suing the Department of Correction for access to a sex change operation had a taxpayer funded mammogram this week, Fox 25 has learned.

Robert Kosilek – who sued for the right to change his name to Michelle in 1993, the year that he began his expensive court battle to force taxpayers to foot the bill for a sex change operation – has been receiving hormone injections and electrolysis hair removal as an inmate at MCI-Norfolk.

Those hormone treatments helped Kosilek develop breasts and the con has been wearing a bra in the all-male Massachusetts prison, DOC officials said.

On April 13, Kosilek, 59, was transported from the prison to the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Boston for an appointment in the radiology department. There he was given a routine mammogram before he was returned to the prison at noon, according to transportation documents obtained by Fox 25.

DOC spokeswoman Diane Wiffin would not comment on Kosilek citing CORI restrictions. But she did release a statement saying:

Read the rest and more video after the jump!

“The DOC’s responsibility is care and custody of inmates, including health care. Clinical indications for mammograms are not gender specific. If a mammogram is recommended by a physician for a male inmate, one would be provided where medically appropriate, as determined by the DOC’s medical service provider,” Wiffin wrote.

Wiffin said that the cost of the hormone and hair removal treatments that have been issued – at taxpayer expense – to Kosilek cannot be released under Massachusetts CORI restrictions. Wiffin said that every inmate is issued clothing including three pairs of elastic pants; one sweatshirt; five t-shirts; five undershorts; five pairs of socks; one pair of sneakers; and a winter jacket.

Kosilek’s wardrobe includes five bras that cost $2.17 each, DOC officials said. He is also issued “some makeup,’’ officials have acknowledged.

Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson, who launched a legal battle of his own for the right to charge inmates $5 a day for their incarceration, said a mammogram for a male inmate is “another example of law-abiding citizens standing at the back of the line.”

“This is a killer who wants to be a girl, a man who murdered his wife, who has access to better health care than citizens who are paying for his incarceration…not only for his incarceration but mammograms and hair removal,’’ Hodgson said. “This is exactly what is wrong with our government. “

Hodgson said that Kosilek threatened to sue him when he was jailed in Bristol County.

“He wanted to sue because we refused to call him Michelle,’’ Hodgson said. “What’s next? Someone in prison decides to be a dog and we have to start barking to him?”

US District Court Judge Mark Wolf has not ruled on whether the state should pay anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 for the sex change operation. Wolf ruled in 2002 that Kosilek was entitled to treatment for gender identity disorder, but stopped short of ordering taxpayer-funded surgery. Kosilek sued again in 2005. Prison officials oppose Kosilek’s request for surgery.

Michelle Kosilek was an addiction counselor named Robert Kosilek, when he was convicted of killing his wife, Cheryl. Kosilek dumped the body in a car outside a local shopping mall. Kosilek went missing after the murder, but ultimately was captured in New Rochelle, N.Y.

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