Gotti v. Raemisch
Summary
In December 2005, the Wisconsin legislature passed Wisconsin Act 105, which purports to prohibit that state’s Department of Corrections from using state funds to provide hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery to people incarcerated in state correctional facilities or secured child care institutions. When the state Department of Corrections threatened to reduce and eventually eliminate hormone therapy prescribed to transgender people in state prison, Lambda Legal filed this case to argue that Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution require the state to provide appropriate medical treatment to all people in state custody. The State agreed to continue prescribed hormone therapies to the plaintiffs in this case while the court heard a case deciding similar issues, Fields v. Frank.
History
- October 2007 Lambda Legal files complaint on behalf of incarcerated transgender individual whose hormone treatments are stopped by prison officials pursuant to Wisconsin state law; state defendants stipulate to entry of preliminary injunction to continue hormone treatments during pendency of case.
- February 2008 Case is put on hold while case involving similar issues, Fields v. Raemisch, is litigated.
- May 2008, April 2009 Lambda Legal adds two new plaintiffs to Gotti and secures preliminary relief while case is pending.
