AUSTIN, Texas — The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has denied a request from Cristina Iglesias, a transgender woman incarcerated in Texas, to become the first inmate in federal custody to receive gender-affirming surgery, her lawyers said.
Iglesias, 47, is serving a 20-year sentence for threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction against the British government. Last week, her lawyer said his client will not receive the surgery she has long requested before her scheduled release later this year.
“After years of fighting unnecessary hurdles and delays, Cristina has once again been denied the opportunity to get the care she needs and that the Constitution requires,” John Knight, director of the LGBTQ & HIV Project at the ACLU of Illinois, said in a statement.
The denial comes as the Biden administration takes steps to provide more accommodations for transgender inmates. The federal prisons bureau recently released updated policies which reversed Trump-era guidance that required housing decisions to be made primarily based on “biological sex.”
The guidance also includes a new section on gender-affirming surgery, a topic that was not directly addressed in the previous policy. Inmates can request surgery after one year of mental health, medical and programming services, the guidance says.
But Knight said the prisons bureau’s approach to Iglesias’ case shows it is willing to “run out the clock” on transgender inmates seeking care.
“Such an approach is neither fair nor humane,” he said.
Iglesias is currently housed at the Federal Medical Center Carswell, a women’s prison in Fort Worth. Her case was filed in federal court in Illinois because she was previously housed in a facility there.
Iglesias has been asking that the prisons bureau approve her for gender-affirming surgery since 2016. In December, a federal judge ordered the agency to make a decision.
If the bureau decided to approve her for surgery, the judge asked that it notify the court by Jan. 26. If it decided to deny her request, the judge gave the bureau 10 additional days to provide the court with an explanation.
Since the Jan. 26 deadline passed without word, Iglesias’ lawyer said he assumes her request was denied even though he has not heard that directly from the bureau. On Friday, the bureau declined to comment on Iglesias’ case and directed The News to its new policies for transgender inmates.
“The BOP is committed to providing all inmates a safe and humane environment, including providing gender-affirming housing and medical care as appropriate,” Spokesman Donald Murphy said.
Knight said Iglesias’ lawyers will carefully review the reasons the bureau provides for denying her surgery, “and, following consultation with her, decide on our next steps.”
While no one has ever received gender-affirming surgery while in federal custody, the bureau approved another inmate for the procedure in October, according to court filings in Iglesias’ case. It is unclear when that person will receive the surgery, and the bureau did not answer questions about the prisoner’s identity, medical status or housing location, citing “privacy, safety and security reasons.”
About 1,200 federal inmates, less than 1% of the total population, identify as transgender, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Inmates housed in state-run jails and prisons are not subject to the same rules as federal inmates. While they, too, can receive hormone therapy while in custody, the state of Texas requires prisoners to be housed in facilities according to the “physical anatomy.”
If the state prisons department determines a transgender inmate cannot be housed safely with other inmates, they may be housed individually, an agency spokesman said.
As of September, 1,608 transgender inmates out of a population of about 120,000 people were in all state-run jails and prisons in Texas.
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