DOJ statement of interest: Gender dysphoria falls under ADA

(NewsNation) — The Department of Justice on Monday filed a statement of interest stating that gender dysphoria falls within the Americans with Disabilities Act’s definition of “disability” and that correctional institutions cannot deny medically appropriate care for people with this condition. 

“People with gender dysphoria should be able to seek the full protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act, just like other people with disabilities,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “The U.S. Constitution requires that people incarcerated in jails and prisons receive necessary medical care, treatment and services to address serious medical conditions.”

The Justice Department filed this statement as part of a lawsuit brought in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia against the state’s Department of Corrections. Also named in the lawsuit are two healthcare companies that provide medical care to inmates. 

Identified as “Jane Doe” in court documents, the plaintiff said in the lawsuit she has been denied gender-affirming surgery, The Appeal writes. Although three psychiatrists and a psychologist from the Georgia Department of Corrections have determined Doe requires it, the complaint says officials are “denying her this critical, medically necessary care because of GDC’s unconstitutional ‘Blanket Ban’ on providing gender-affirming surgeries to transgender people in their custody.”

“GDC has refused to treat Ms. Doe despite her severe and overwhelming gender dysphoria, which include two castration attempts, multiple suicide attempts, and almost daily self-harm,” the lawsuit said.

Refusing to give Doe the “necessary care” has “worsened her gender dysphoria symptoms by feeding the thought that Ms. Doe might never be able to live in a body that looks like her gender identity,” the lawsuit said.

In addition to the surgery, the lawsuit is asking that Doe be provided with items from the women’s commissary, that she be allowed to shower at a separate time away from other incarcerated people and male guards, and that Doe be transferred out of solitary confinement and into a women’s facility with the general population. 

Doe, according to The Appeal, is currently at Phillips State Prison, where she’s been in Georgia Department of Correction custody since 1992. 

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