A federal judge overseeing a former Illinois inmate’s struggle to have gender-affirming surgery has accused the U.S. Bureau of Prisons of treating the case like a game of “whack-a-mole” and is threatening the agency with fines.
“Throughout this litigation, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has employed tactics similar to the game of Plinko on ‘The Price is Right.’ BOP was warned for employing these tactics, and it apologized,” U.S. District Chief Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel of the Southern District of Illinois wrote in a memo and order filed this week. “Now BOP’s tactics are turning into a game of ‘whack-a-mole.’ Indeed, it appeared the last of BOP’s moles had been ‘whacked.’ Then another one ‘popped up.’”
