Texas Allowing Transgender Inmates To Start Hormone Therapy

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NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Your tax dollars are now going to pay for Texas inmates to begin hormone therapy to manage "intersex conditions and Gender Dysphoria." A new Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) policy change means prisoners, even those who have had no previous treatment,  can now receive hormone therapy.

The previous policy would only continue therapy for inmates who came into the system already taking hormones.

The U.S. Department of Justice had previously said that denying hormone therapy for transgender people in prison is "cruel and unusual punishment."

Lambda Legal Transgender Rights Project Attorney Demoya Gordon says the change will be life saving for some inmates. "Studies have determined time and time again, that people who get appropriate treatment; rates of depression, rates of suicide and rates of suicidal ideation decrease."

Hormone therapy for trans women typically includes anti-androgen therapy as well as estrogen therapy and testosterone for trans men. Transgender refers to someone who identifies as a different gender than their sex at birth.

Hormone therapy changes the balance of sex hormones in the body causing the development of secondary sex characteristics of the desired sex. The State of Texas does not pay for or offer sex reassignment surgery to inmates.

A statement put out by TDCJ explains that the therapy only starts after a prisoner goes through a rigorous process after receiving an affirmative diagnosis, including being reviewed by a gender dysphoria specialist and an endocrinologist.

The new policy states that treatment is –

"To ensure that offenders with complaints consistent with intersex conditions or Gender Dysphoria are evaluated by appropriate medical and mental health professionals and treatment is determined on a case-by-case basis as clinically indicated."

Attorney Gordon further affirmed that when someone enters prison, they don't give up their rights to medically appropriate treatment. "And that's the same whether it's treatment for diabetes, whether it's treatment for cancer or whether it's treatment for gender dysphoria," she said.

A spokesman for TDCJ said the policy was updated in August "to reflect community standards of care" after the American Psychiatric Association updated its manual of mental disorders to include "gender dysphoria" as a diagnosable condition.

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