California inmate paroled after court required state to pay for sex-change surgery settles her suit
A former California inmate who won a federal court order requiring the state to pay for gender-reassignment surgery—but was released on parole last year before the surgery was performed—has settled her civil rights suit.
Under the pact, the state will pay about $500,000 in legal fees for Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, 52, and drop its appeal of the San Francisco ruling, according to the Associated Press and the San Francisco Chronicle. Norsworthy served 30 years in prison for second-degree murder.
The settlement is billed by Norsworthy and the Transgender Law Center as establishing “undisputed legal precedent” by ending the state’s appeal of the U.S. District Court ruling ordering the state to provide Norsworthy with sex-change surgery while she was still an inmate.
However, the opinion will presumably be, at most, persuasive to other courts facing similar cases: Trial-level U.S. District Court opinions do not set a precedent that is binding in other cases, as a 2010 Volokh Conspiracy blog post discusses, aided by commenters.
The fact of the settlement with Norsworthy was confirmed by the state attorney general’s office, but details were provided by her counsel. A spokesman for the state corrections department declined to comment when contacted by the Associated Press.
“What the state of California did to me was not right,” said Norsworthy in a written statement. “I was denied medical care, experienced repeated and brutal sexual assault, and suffered the daily rejection of my basic humanity and identity for 30 years.
The AP article says the decision in Norsworthy’s case last year is only the second U.S. ruling in which a state was ordered to provide sex-change surgery for an inmate.
An earlier U.S. District Court decision requiring Massachusetts to pay for surgery for inmate Michelle Kosilek was initially upheld on appeal but subsequently overturned in an en banc 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in 2014.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “After federal judge orders sex-change surgery, board OKs parole for inmate”
