Transgender inmate at Minnesota men’s prison sues for discrimination

MOOSE LAKE, Minn. — A transgender girl incarcerated in a Minnesota males’s jail has filed a lawsuit accusing the state corrections division of discrimination and violation of state human rights regulation.

Christina Lusk, a 56-year-old serving a sentence for drug possession on the Moose Lake Correctional Facility is “socially, medically, and legally” feminine however is just not acknowledged as such by the Minnesota Division of Corrections, advocacy group Gender Justice mentioned in a lawsuit filed on Lusk’s behalf. Lusk has advised jail officers her placement in dormitory housing on the jail places her “direct line of fireside for violence” and that she feels unsafe.

Regardless of the state of Minnesota recognizing Lusk as a girl, the state corrections division positioned her in a males’s jail, exposing her to discrimination and harassment, the lawsuit mentioned. Officers declined Lusk’s request to be positioned on the ladies’s jail in Shakopee, a call Gender Justice mentioned the corrections division made primarily based on genitalia moderately than authorized or medical standards.

“Denial of well being care, failure to deal with transgender individuals within the acceptable services, and misgendering transgender individuals in state custody is dehumanizing and degrading,” Gender Justice mentioned in saying the lawsuit filed Monday, June 6, in Ramsey County District Court docket.

Lusk was designated male at delivery, and began hormone substitute remedy after popping out as transgender in 2008, based on the lawsuit. She modified her identify in 2018 and was consulting with medical doctors about gender-affirming surgical procedure across the time of her 2019 arrest.

The corrections division’s transgender committee really helpful she be positioned at Moose Lake in single-cell or dormitory housing and be capable to bathe alone. At sure factors, she was housed with as many as seven males, the lawsuit mentioned. She filed a grievance with the Minnesota Division of Human Rights in 2020.

Whereas incarcerated, Lusk has sought gender-affirming surgical procedure however corrections officers have denied her request to obtain it whereas incarcerated, even supposing medical doctors had authorized her for the process earlier than she went to jail, based on the lawsuit. Lusk is ready to be launched in 2024.

The corrections division making choices on the place to carry Lusk and denying her gender-affirming surgical procedure is unconstitutional and violates the Minnesota Human Rights Act, Gender Justice argues of their lawsuit, which seeks damages and for Lusk to be handled as a girl by the state jail system.

The Minnesota Division of Corrections didn’t instantly return a request for remark.