Transgender people in Idaho Department of Correction custody can get hormone therapy – for now

A federal judge on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction and class action status in a lawsuit filed on behalf of transgender incarcerated people who sued the state of Idaho over House Bill 668, a law that prohibits state funds and facilities from providing gender-affirming care. 

This means that all people in Idaho correctional facilities who are or will be diagnosed with gender dysphoria who would normally receive hormone therapy are now exempt from having to comply with the law for the remainder of the lawsuit. 

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are two transgender women incarcerated in Idaho prisons who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and have been prescribed hormone medications. As a class action lawsuit, they are representing other incarcerated individuals with gender dysphoria. They argue the law violates the Eighth Amendment as it denies them necessary medical treatment.

The defendants include Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt and Deputy Director Bree Derrick, and Centurion Health. The defendants argue that the state is in control of setting a standard for medical care.

Judge David Nye initially denied the plaintiffs’ request to proceed as a class action lawsuit because there was no evidence presented in the lawsuit showing numerous people in correctional custody had gender dysphoria. 

Documents later presented to the court from Centurion, the health care provider employed by the Idaho Department of Correction, showed that before House Bill 668 took effect, 54 incarcerated people were receiving hormone therapy in Idaho prisons, and between 60 to 70 incarcerated patients had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. 

Nye said the plaintiffs raise “serious questions” going to the merits of their case, and they have shown they would experience irreparable harm from enforcement of the law. He referenced Estelle v. Gamble, a case where the Supreme Court ruled the government has an “obligation to provide medical care for those whom it is punishing by incarceration.”

“The Supreme Court has made clear that prison officials who exhibit ‘deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners’ violate the Eighth Amendment rights of those prisoners,” Nye said. 

Nye said there is no dispute that gender dysphoria is a serious medical need. 

“The parties’ disagreement stems from whether (House Bill 668’s) prohibition on appearance-changing medical interventions requires prison officials to act in a way that is deliberately indifferent to that serious medical need,” Nye wrote in his decision.

House Bill 668 still remains in effect for non-incarcerated individuals with gender dysphoria.

The lawsuit was originally filed using the pseudonyms Jane Roe and Jane Poe, but the plaintiffs have since started using their legal names, which are not the names they go by today, according to a press release from the ACLU of Idaho.

Katie Heredia, whose legal last name is Robinson, is listed as the lead plaintiff.

“I’m not [a plaintiff in the lawsuit] because I want recognition,” Heredia said in the press release. “I’m doing it because it has to be done. We are just normal people who happen to be trans. We have medical conditions and deserve access to medical treatment.”

Rose Mills is the other plaintiff who dropped their use of anonymity for the remainder of the lawsuit.

“We really are human beings who just want to be treated like everybody else,” Mills said in the release. “This decision (House Bill 668) was not people-led. It was just a few people who decided that, and the public needs to know that.”

ACLU of Idaho legal director Paul Carlos Southwick said his team is thrilled at Nye’s decision.

“We are grateful that this class action lawsuit will protect the rights of both our plaintiffs and all incarcerated people diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” he said in the release. “People who are serving time have a right to access health care, adequate food, and housing conditions while in the state’s care, and we are grateful those rights were upheld today.”

Emily Croston, ACLU of Idaho staff attorney, said she is proud of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“We are proud of the lead plaintiffs in our class action lawsuit for standing up for their community and challenging the state to protect their rights, especially in a legislative environment that is growing more and more hostile to transgender people,” she said. “The reality is that the state has a responsibility to the people in its care, and it is unconstitutional to abdicate that responsibility. That is contrary to the values against government tyranny that our country was founded on.”