7th Circuit: Wisconsin prohibition on “transgender” hormone treatment for prisoners violates 8th Amend.Fox News: A federal appeals court has upheld a judge’s ruling striking down a Wisconsin law banning taxpayer-funded hormone therapy for transgender inmates. | ACLU press release Fields v. Smith, Nos. 10-2339 & 10-2466 (7th Cir. Aug. 5, 2011) Before ROVNER and WOOD, Circuit Judges, and GOTTSCHALL, District Judge. In this appeal, we are asked to review the decision of the district court invalidating a Wisconsin state statute which prohibits the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (“DOC”) from providing transgender inmates with certain medical treatments. The Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act (“Act 105”) provides in relevant part . . . The [Wisconsin Department of Corrections] may not authorize the payment of any funds or the use of any resources of this state or the payment of any federal funds passing through the state treasury to provide or to facilitate the provision of hormonal therapy or sexual reassignment surgery . . . . 2005 Wis. Act 105, codified at Wis. Stat. § 302.386(5m ) (2010). The district court concluded that this provision violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Defendants, various DOC officials, now appeal . . . Having determined that the district court properly held that Act 105 violates the Eighth Amendment, both on its face and as applied to plaintiffs, we need not address the district court ’s alternate holding that the
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