Idaho asks Supreme Court to hear case on transgender inmate’s request for surgery
Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s office announced Thursday that it has filed the necessary petitions to ask the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn a ruling requiring Idaho to pay for a transgender inmate’s gender confirmation surgery.
It’s the second time the state has appealed a ruling directing it to provide the surgery to 31-year-old Adree Edmo, a transwoman who is serving a sentence of three to 10 years for sexual abuse of a child under 16 in Bannock County. Last August, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s previous ruling that denying Edmo the surgery constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
“The 9th Circuit’s decision goes against the text and original meaning of the Eighth Amendment and contradicts more than four decades of Supreme Court precedent,” Little said in a news release. “We will vigorously litigate the 9th Circuit’s unprecedented ruling at the Supreme Court because the taxpayers of Idaho should not have to pay for a procedure that is not medically necessary.”
Edmo sued the Idaho Department of Correction and its medical provider, Corizon, in 2017, arguing that the surgery is a medically necessary treatment for gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is a psychiatric condition that can cause severe distress in individuals whose biological sex does not align with their gender identity.
Little’s news release noted that the state asked the 9th Circuit Court to rehear the case, but was denied.
“Ten judges dissented from the denial. One of those dissents, joined by eight judges, found the 9th Circuit’s decision to be ‘as unjustified as it is unprecedented,’ ” the news release said.
At least four of the nine U.S. Supreme Court judges must agree to hear a case before it is considered by the Supreme Court.
If Edmo’s surgery is performed, it could be the first gender confirmation surgery performed on a U.S. inmate in custody.
