Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of two transgender women, challenging a Wisconsin law that bars them from access to appropriate medical treatment while they are jailed, according to an ACLU release.
In 2005, the Wisconsin legislature passed a law that bars prison physicians from deciding the best course of treatment for transgender people by denying them access to any type of hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery while in state custody. (Legislators supporting the law claimed that it was necessary to reduce expenses while opponents state the intent is to punish transgender individuals.) Lambda Legal and the ACLU are representing Kari Sundstrom and Andrea Fields, who are both serving time in Wisconsin prisons on forgery charges. Sundstrom, 41, has been on hormone therapy since 1990. Fields, 29, has been on hormone therapy since 1996.
According to the ACLU and Lambda Legal, Wisconsin is believed to be the only state in the country to have such a statute.