Fox News Celebrates Transgender Day Of Remembrance

Perhaps I should pay more attention to Faux, I mean Fox, News than I do.  After all, in its own way, it's brilliant:  It whips up resentment against everyone in the world except the ones who are making the lives of their viewers more difficult.  Of course, the reason for that is that Fox is owned by the sorts of people who make their viewers' lives less tenuous.

A friend of mine alerted me to an egregious (even for Fox) example.  When the first Transgender Days of Remembrance were held, Fox executives and producers could honestly claim they were unaware:  Hey, I was, too!  However, I don't think that they could make such a defense of themselves now.

Certainly there's no defense for what they did on Tuesday, the 20th:  They started their day's "news" broadcasts with an alert that mocked transgender Massachusetts inmate Michelle Kosilek's request for electrolysis treatment.

Whether or not you believe that she had a "right" to such treatment, I don't think you can defend the network's timing.  I, for one, cannot see it as anything but a cynical ploy that shows Fox executives and producers have as much contempt for their audience as they do for those against whom they try to fan the flames of resentment.

Michelle Kosilek: A Dilemma Of The Eighth Amendment

On one hand, we have the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which forbids "cruel and unusual punishment."  This is interpreted to mean, among other things, that prisoners cannot be denied necessary medical care.

On the other hand, we have someone who brutally murdered a spouse nearly two decades ago.  This person has a condition that was not diagnosed until after the murder conviction, and is listed as a psychiatric disorder in DSM-V.

It just happens that treatment for this person's condition is very expensive.  Only two insurance plans in the United States cover the cost of it.  It's one of the reasons why the vast majority of people with the condition don't get, or get very minimal, treatment.

Since you're reading this blog, you've probably guessed where this is going:  What if the prisoner is transgendered, and the condition was diagnosed after the murder?  

The prisoner in question is Michelle (nee Robert) Kosilek.  As a Boston Phoenix editorial points out, she's "an unsympathetic poster child for prisoner or transgender rights.   And those two issues are central to this case."

Kosilek has been receiving hormone treatments since she was diagnosed nine years ago.  Recently, Chief US District Court Judge Mark Wolf ruled that the State of Massachusetts has to provide Kosilek with gender-reassignment surgery.  Wolf, who has the reputation of being a tough "law and order" judge, recognizes that GRS isn't cosmetic surgery and that under the law, he really couldn't make any other ruling.  Still, he noted--perhaps with irony or sarcasm--that, "It may seem strange that in the United States, citizens do not have a constitutional right to adequate medical care, but the Eighth Amendment promises prisoners such care."  

On one hand, I can see how some people would think it unfair that Kosilek is getting a surgery most people can't afford and almost no insurance plan covers.  The ire of some such people is no doubt fueled by their misconceptions or hatred of trans people.  Others may simply object to so much money being spent on someone who committed a brutal murder. On the other hand, I understand that Judge Wolf--who, I suspect, has a pretty high level of integrity--knew that he was bound by the Constitution of this country.  He would have made the same ruling if Kosilek were still living as Robert and, instead of gender dysphoria, he was suffering from some form of cancer or some rare disease.  Yes, it's unfair that many people die because they can't afford, or their insurance doesn't cover, the treatments.  However, denying care to someone else for whom it is available doesn't right the situation of someone who does not have access to the necessary care.  


Judge Wolf made, I think, the correct decision, given the circumstances.  Now, if we really think it's unfair that prisoners have access to medical care that perhaps one out of every four Americans don't (and most prisoners wouldn't, were they not in prison), we have to figure out a way to make access to health care more equitable.  Denying care to someone, or some group of people, is not the way to do it.