Sex Change Games

For John, BLUF:  It is not good when Government plays games.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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On page two of today's edition of The [Lowell] Sun is an AP story on the continuing saga of Mr Robert J Kosilek, or Michelle Kosilek, as he likes to be known.  To refresh your memory, he was convicted of killing his wife.  He also wants a sex change operation of taxpayers expense (he is in jail, after all).

Federal Judge Mark Wolf ordered the Commonwealth to provide the operation, "noting that former Corrections Commissioner Kathleen Dennehy had engaged in "pretense, pretext, and prevarication" to deny the treatment."♠  My sense is that Judge Wolf is not one to put up with bureaucratic games and those games got us in trouble.

In fact, it is surprising to me that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, famous for its Supreme Judicial Court decision in Goodrich v Department of Public Health,♥ would act this way.  It could be:

• The Commonwealth really only gives lip service to the idea of equal rights in the area of gender.
• The majority of People in the Commonwealth, including the majority of Democrats (registered and defacto), including the majority of Bureaucrats oppose equal rights in the area of gender but are cowed by those who support such rights.
• We believe the incarcerated are a lesser form of life and thus respecting their gender rights is not important.
• It it all George Bush's fault.

Incidently, The [Lowell] Sun, on 4 February of this year argued, here, that we spend the extra money and fight the original ruling.

I don't feel strongly one way or the other regarding the operation, if competent and informed medical advice says Ms Kosilek is adequately being cared for.  What I feel very strongly about is the idea that our prison system has been slow rolling this thing, thus, in essence, abusing the prisoner.  I am with Judge Wolf.  The system needs to acknowledge and repent of its abuse by granting an operation.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Per Wikipedia.
♥  Actually, I think Goodridge is a pretty thin reed, given its bad sociology and slanted opinion.  And it was weak on the issue of threesomes.