As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:
California prison officials moved Friday to halt a transgender prison inmate’s court-ordered sex reassignment surgery, arguing that the unprecedented order was medically unnecessary and would subject prison health care to “an inmate’s personal preferences.”
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation asked U.S. District JudgeJon Tigar to suspend his April 2 ruling — allowing Michelle Lael-Norsworthyto undergo male-to-female surgery — while the state asks a federal appeals court to overturn the ruling. It was the first such judicial order in California and the second in the nation.
Lael-Norsworthy, 51, was convicted of second-degree murder in 1987. She has identified as a woman since the mid-1990s, has received hormone therapy in prison since 2000 and has the appearance and voice of a woman. She remains housed in men’s prisons.
