Idaho AG files brief against “sex changes for prisoners” months after Alaska inmate is allowed medical care for gender dysphoria
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BOISE — The Idaho Attorney General has announced his opposition to “court-ordered sex changes for prisoners” relating to a case in Alaska where an inmate was granted medical care after claiming the Alaska Department of Corrections was ignoring her medical necessities stemming from gender dysphoria.
According to a news release from the Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, together with Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and a coalition of 24 states, “has filed an amicus curiae brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals strongly arguing that the Eighth Amendment does not require states to provide prisoners with risky, controversial, and medically debated sex-change surgeries.”
The case in question, Emalee R. Wagoner v. Jennifer Winkelman, Commissioner of the Department of Corrections (No. 25-6813), arises from a U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska order directing the state to refer the prisoner for surgical consultation.
According to court documents, Wagoner is a transgender inmate who was reportedly diagnosed with gender dysphoria who accused the Alaska Department of Corrections of “deliberate medical indifference” and claims that they “failed in their duty to create and advise the implementation of policies and procedures that would give the AKDOC medical/mental health staff direction in the treatment of transgender inmates in their care at all AKDOC facilities.”
Wagoner says she suffered “severe stress, anxiety, and physical pain for almost two years now due to (her) gender dysphoria.” In September, the court ruled in Wagoner’s favor, ordering declaratory and injunctive relief.
“The defendant, Jennifer Winkelman, in her official capacity as Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections, has acted with deliberate indifference regarding Ms. Wagoner’s gender dysphoria by denying gender-affirming genital surgery, and, in so doing, violated the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment,” says court documents.
Winkelman was ordered to provide Wagoner with “adequate medical care, including prompt referral to a qualified surgeon for evaluation and consultation for gender affirming genital surgery.”
In 2020, an Idaho inmate, 32-year-old transgender woman Adree Edmo, became the second person in United States history to receive gender confirmation surgery while in prison.
RELATED | Idaho inmate becomes second in US to receive gender confirmation surgery
In 2012, doctors at IDOC diagnosed Edmo with gender dysphoria. The American Psychiatric Association says gender dysphoria represents itself as “conflict between a person’s physical or assigned gender and the gender with which” the person identifies. The association says people with gender dysphoria might feel uncomfortable with the gender they were assigned at birth.
The treatment for such a disorder can vary from person to person, according to the APA. For some, it requires surgery, while others use hormonal therapy or counseling.
In 2024, Idaho House Bill 668, was passed, prohibiting government dollars from being used for any “surgical operation or medical intervention” related to gender transitions — meaning that transgender people in prison could no longer be prescribed medication that can change their appearance, or give them feminine or masculine traits, according to the Idaho Statesman.
Specifically, it banned treatments that alter the “appearance” of a person “in a way that is inconsistent with the individual’s biological sex.”
Labrador’s brief argues that the Alaska ruling “exceeds constitutional limits and overrides states’ authority over prison medical care and policy, so the decision should be reversed.”
“A federal court ordered Alaska to refer a prisoner for sex-change surgery consultation, which threatens to set a precedent that forces other states to provide these procedures using taxpayer dollars,” says Labrador in the release. “Idaho supports Alaska in defending state medical decisions against judicial overreach. The Eighth Amendment ensures basic medical care for prisoners, but it doesn’t require states to provide experimental gender transition surgeries.”
The brief states that the Eighth Amendment bars deliberate indifference to serious medical needs but does not guarantee prisoners access to any particular treatment—especially those that are unproven, highly debated, and carry significant risks with uncertain benefits.
“The Eighth Amendment stops cruel and unusual punishment. It doesn’t give prisoners the right to demand risky, optional surgeries when doctors and scientists still strongly disagree about whether they’re safe or even helpful,” says Attorney Rokita in the release. “If courts force states to provide these expensive, controversial procedures in one prison, it will open the floodgates everywhere—putting Hoosier taxpayers and families across the country on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars per surgery in virtually every state. We cannot let that happen. We have to win this case to protect hardworking taxpayers from footing the bill for these insane surgeries.”
The release says surgeries are unavailable for free to citizens in nearly half of U.S. states, making them “not a basic necessity.” The brief also states that prior Ninth Circuit case law does not require these procedures, and mandating out-of-state prisoner transfers for unavailable care raises major federalism issues and conflicts with the Prison Litigation Reform Act.
“The coalition asks the Ninth Circuit to vacate the district court’s injunction and affirm states’ discretion in managing prisoner healthcare and corrections,” says the release.