Two Republican Idaho lawmakers, including the second highest-ranking official in the state Senate, are backing an online petition against a federal judge’s ruling that says Idaho must provide gender confirmation surgery to a transgender inmate.
Idaho Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill of Rexburg, and state Representative-elect Chad Christensen of Ammon say they support the petition that states Idaho taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for the costs of providing gender confirmation surgery to 31-year-old Adree Edmo, a transgender inmate from the Pocatello area who was living as a woman before her 2012 incarceration in a men’s Idaho Department of Correction prison in Kuna. Edmo was sentenced in April 2012 for sexual abuse of a child under 16 in Bannock County, and will finish her sentence in 2021.
The petition comes after U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill ruled two weeks ago that the Idaho Department of Correction and Corizon, IDOC’s contractor for health services, must provide Edmo with gender confirmation surgery because, in refusing to do so, they are violating Edmo’s Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Hill says he did not sign the petition, believing his role may be to vote on potential legislation regarding the issue. But he called the judge’s ruling -quote – “a travesty and an insult to the people of Idaho” and said lawmakers would encourage the Idaho Attorney General to appeal the decision to a higher court.
Christensen, who is among the 3,828 people who signed the online petition as of last Thursday, said he too has no issues with the wishes of those in the LGBTQ community, but that he cannot support taxpayers fronting the bill for a person’s gender confirmation surgery. (Idaho State Journal)
