Washington state will now be required to provide gender-affirming care to incarcerated trans people, in a major victory won by the advocacy group Disability Rights Washington.
The Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) will now provide gender-affirming healthcare and services like those that the state’s trans Medicaid recipients have access to, according to a press release from Disability Rights Washington (DRW). The program covers various gender-affirming surgeries and hair removal procedures, which means that those same procedures may be provided for some incarcerated trans people in Washington. Additionally, the DOC will ensure that people with active prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy will continue to receive that care, and that incarcerated people who are seeking HRT will be able to receive it, unless there are “major medical contraindications,” per the press release.
The DOC will also retain a medical specialist in gender-affirming care, as well as gender-affirming health specialists at major prisons. DOC officers will also be mandated to undergo trans-focused sensitivity training Lastly, the DOC will provide gender-affirming clothing to trans people in prison, develop policies that will allow trans people to shower and change separately from others, and end unnecessary strip and pat-down searches.
DRW staff attorney Ethan Frenchman told local outlet KUOW that the agreement “is one of the best and most comprehensive consent decrees in the country concerning the treatment of transgender people in prison or jail.” He also called the policy a “landmark,” since it “explicitly ties prison medical care to community Medicaid standards.”
The settlement has been in the works since 2019, according to local CBS affiliate KREM 2. Last Wednesday, DRW and the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) reached an agreement in federal court over the complaint DRW had filed about the DOC’s treatment of trans inmates. The complaint alleged that the DOC’s treatment of incarcerated trans people violated the U.S. Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Rehabilitation Act, the latter of which also prohibits discrimination against disabled people.
The complaint also stated that the DOC failed to provide medical and mental health care to trans inmates, and subjected them to “harmful and unnecessary” strip and pat-down searches. Additionally, the complaint says that the DOC discriminated against disabled trans patients while providing gender-affirming care to them, and failed to provide accommodations.
In the press release, DRW noted that the case was a part of the organization’s “longstanding work to ensure people in prison have access to necessary specialized healthcare.”
“For over 10 years, DRW has tried to convince DOC to provide healthcare for serious medical needs as required by the constitution,” the press release reads. “This case is one step toward achieving that reality.”
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