Vaginal Rape Less Common For "Male" Prisoners

This afternoon when I heard about the inmates who want free sex changes, I thought it was the beginning of a bad joke; the punchline being that these (new)women could be the legit’ prison bitches. But apparently Wisconsin inmate Scott Konitzer, who was convicted of multiple armed robberies and stabbing another inmate, is suing prison officials for not allowing him to sex change, claiming that it violates his pursuit of happiness. He has been on state paid hormone therapy since 1999, which has caused him to develop feminine features including breasts (not just moobs).

The basis of his defense is that prison officials told him that he would be offered the surgery after hormone treatment, and that not to go through with the therapy is cruel and unusual punishment. Prison officials claim they were only allowing him to continue a treatment he had used occasionally prior to incarceration. Konitzer objects to being incarcerated with men, taking communal showers, being strip searched by male guards, and he also resents the fact that he cannot wear bras or other female clothing.

Transexualism is one of the few topics I’m not extremely opinionated on because I don’t fully understand the situation. I know that almost everyone who believes they are the opposite gender has Gender Identity Disorder and I’d like to believe that this is merely the product of a severe self image “problem.” I’d like to blame this on internalized oppression stemming from traditional gender roles or confusion with sexual orientation. I’d really like to believe that this could be treated with extensive therapy and lots and lots of drugs.

However, I don't know that my assumptions are true, and although the neutrality of the wikipedia page is disputed, it claims that aversion therapy is now looked down upon as unaffective and emotionally damaging. Those who do not receive any treatment will always feel that the person they are on the inside is inconsistent with who they are on the inside. They often dream of castration or other forms of genital mutilation long before they come to the conclusion that they need a sex change. The transsexual group has some of the highest suicide rates. To my surprise, Surgery is often the most effective treatment.

I suppose that if Joe Blow wants to become Suzie Blow, it’s not harming me, so whatever. However losing the privilege to sex change is one of the many prices you must pay for being incarcerated. I’m sure lots of transsexuals were just angry at the world because they were really chicks on the inside. But if they wanted a sex change that badly, they should’ve been saving up money in a bank account and working overtime, not selling rocks and killing people.

Although the condition affects 1 in 30,000 females and 1 in 100,000 males, you don’t hear of any females requesting prison sex changes. The cynical part of me suspects that lots of these “transsexual” men are faking the condition because they are suicidal. Maybe they really do have image problems from constant abuse, but either way I bet that they are getting beaten and raped constantly; it would make sense that some inmates would dramatically exaggerate their mindset because they know that getting transferred to a women’s prison would result in better treatment. They are getting paroled in year 3000, and they have no other way out, so why not get a free sex change…after all, their penises are pretty worthless in jail.

Konitzer has an interesting case, and I actually think he could win: I sympathize with him. The prison officials are definitely at fault and have wasted tax payers money with this questionable hormone treatment. Now he is even more pained because he feels and looks more like a woman trapped in a man’s body. Either give him the drugs and the sex change or don't do either (and maybe let him win this lawsuit). It’s just obvious that if you give a mouse a cookie, it will only want a glass of milk, or a sex change.

Another cynical part of me has decided that I don't care if he loses. If he wins it may set precedent for further lawsuits which could eventually lead to free prison sex changes. This is not fair to American tax payers, and Walter Mayer, president of the International Gender Dysphoria Association, said “If the prison system started to offer this surgery, there would be people lining up to be in prison. Some of my patients would commit crimes just to get free surgery.” This is an expensive procedure that law abiders have to pay for themselves on the outside. What's next - breast implants? Facial reconstruction?

This kind of reminds me of the Ludovico treatment in A Clockwork Orange: aggression control, and whether or not it is ethical and practical. Maybe anyone serving a mandatory minimum sentence for violence or sex related crimes should be sex changed, or given estrogen, or neutered. It would definitely provide incentive to obey the law. However there are lots of habitual offenders and since we would have to enforce this policy equally on all genders, lots of these men transformed into women would then become men again, and then women, and so on. Sure there'd be great mugshots for all of us to see, but this would probably also be cruel and unusual punishment. This would be an interesting experiment, that would prove a lot about hormones and moral/legal decisions, but I'm not emperor of the world; so maybe we should just force prisoners to suffer the way they were born, after all, prison is not a vacation. Not when you stab people.