Supreme Court won't put Idaho inmate's gender reassignment surgery on hold

by CBS2 News Staff & Associated Press

Fri, May 22nd 2020, 12:15 AM UTC

Born as Mason Edmo, Adree was raised just north of Pocatello at the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Edmo wrote in her original civil rights complaint against the IDOC in 2017 that "she lived full-time as a woman, dressing in women’s clothes and wearing women’s cosmetics" long before her prison sentence

BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — The U.S. Supreme Court doubled down on their original ruling to allow a transgender inmate in Idaho to go ahead with sex reassignment surgery.

Idaho's Governor Brad Little announced last week that the state had formally asked the nation's high court to take up the case.

Adree Edmo's gender reassignment surgery is cleared to take place in July while the court considers whether to hear Idaho's appeal in the case.

Edmo, 32, is serving a sentence for a 2011 sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy. Edmo has been housed in a men's prison for the last 8 years and is scheduled to be released from prison in July of 2021.

Edmo sued the state three years ago, contending that prison officials' refusal to provide Edmo with gender confirmation surgery caused severe distress because of gender dysphoria.

One attorney, Lori Rifkin, has said Edmo experienced such suffering from the lack of treatment that Edmo twice tried to cut off her testicles in her prison cell.

Edmo has so far prevailed at both the federal district and appellate courts.

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