Inmate sues for estrogen therapy

BOISE – An Idaho inmate who considers herself a woman trapped in a man’s body – and who castrated herself while in prison – is suing the state in federal court to get female hormone therapy for what she describes as gender identity disorder.

Jenniffer Spencer, who is biologically male and castrated herself using a disposable razor blade in her prison cell, claims the Idaho Department of Correction and its health care providers are violating her constitutional rights and subjecting her to cruel and unusual punishment by failing to diagnose gender identity disorder and treat her with the female hormone estrogen.

But the state’s attorneys contend that prison doctors did not find conclusive evidence that Spencer, who is in her 20s, has the disorder, and that after her castration doctors did offer her treatment with the male hormone testosterone, which she refused.

A trial in the case likely won’t happen for months. But U.S. District Judge Mikel Williams said Wednesday that he would decide soon whether the state must provide Spencer with estrogen pending trial.

The case began in May 2000, when Spencer – then still using her given name of Randall Gammett – was sentenced to prison for possession of a stolen car. She was sent to a boot camp prison program at Cottonwood, but after an escape attempt was ordered to serve her full sentence for possession of stolen property as well as time for the escape, a total of 10 years.

According to her lawsuit, filed last year, Spencer claims she lived full time as a woman and took birth control pills before she was incarcerated, in an attempt to develop the secondary sex characteristics of a woman. But she apparently didn’t tell Idaho Department of Correction officials that she believed she had gender identity disorder until September 2003, when she learned the state had a policy detailing treatment options for transgender inmates.

Though she submitted about 75 requests for gender identity disorder treatment, she claims the department ignored her requests. Instead, prison doctors diagnosed her with a nonspecific sexual disorder, then bipolar disorder. In August 2004, Spencer tried to hang herself in her cell but survived.

When prison officials still refused to prescribe estrogen, Spencer tried to castrate herself using a razor blade. During her first attempt in October 2004, she only made a cut in her scrotum, but 10 days later she tried again and succeeded. She said she flushed her testicles down the cell toilet.

The prison guards who found her also found a note in her cell, which read: “I cut my genitals off do (sic) to the facts that I am a transgendered individual and I could stand the sight of them no more. This is not a suicide attempt. This is simply a way for me to remmady (sic) my problem.”

After the castration, doctors diagnosed her with hypogonadism – a condition that can lead to osteoporosis, loss of muscle mass and other problems if left untreated. Spencer asked again for estrogen, but the doctors prescribed testosterone instead – a prescription that Spencer has refused to take.

Now her lawyers claim that she is suffering irreparable damage because of the lack of estrogen. Trying to give someone in her condition testosterone is “medically indefensible,” Spencer’s attorney James Schurz said, and only puts Spencer in further despair.

But John Burke, one of the lawyers representing the defendants, said the case boils down to a simple difference of medical opinion. Though physicians hired by Spencer’s attorneys say she has gender identity disorder, several physicians working for the Idaho Department of Correction have not found that diagnosis to be appropriate. Treating someone without gender identity disorder with estrogen would do serious harm and be unethical in Spencer’s case, he said.