Attorney General Alan Wilson Joins 24-State Coalition Against Taxpayers Funding Sex Changes for Prison Inmates

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has joined a coalition of 23 other states in filing a brief arguing that taxpayers should not have to pay for sex change operations for prison inmates.
The brief was filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in a case from Indiana.
“The fact that a prison inmate thinks a sex change should be paid for by taxpayers’ hard-earned money is ridiculous, and we’re asking the Court to block it,” Attorney General Wilson said. “People are having trouble paying their bills, so they shouldn’t be forced to pay for Bill to become Belinda.”
The attorneys general argue in their brief that states are responsible for the security and healthcare of prison inmates, and “they need the flexibility to do that, on a limited budget funded by taxpayers, with security concerns unique to prisons.”
In the Indiana case, a federal court blocked an Indiana law that prohibits the payment of any money or use of state resources to provide gender reassignment surgery for an inmate. The court also required the state “to take all reasonable actions to secure plaintiff gender-affirming surgery at the earliest opportunity.” The AGs are asking the Court of Appeals to reverse that lower court ruling.
The attorneys general also argue that the lower court based its ruling on standards of care from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), but those standards are unreliable. In fact, the brief argues that WPATH changed its recommendations based on political concerns.
Joining Attorney General Wilson in the brief, which Alabama led, are the attorneys general of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
You can read the brief here:
https://www.scag.gov/media/ippfeety/ca7-28-states-amicus-br-iso-indiana-filed.pdf