Pollux
Member
I understand the moral reasoning I just think that this should be provided to those who are not murderers as well and until that time it shouldnt be provided to the murderer. Just my opinion.
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Yes the US prison and US healthcare systems are possibly irrevocably broken when a murderer has easier cheaper access to this type of treatment than a college student who is currently applying for graduate work in physics. Maybe I should tell my gf's friend to beat the shit out of me when she graduates and get a short year or so prison sentence so she can afford this?
That's not Kosilek.
Kosilek. The murderer that this thread is about. Was there another murderer mentioned in this thread?
You misunderstand, I'm not even speaking of violence at this point, although that is certainly a topic in of itself. I speak pretty personally when I say the psychological effect of segregating me with men would lead to crippling anxiety, depression and self-harm. To have my identity disregarded in such an epic fashion would completely debilitate me.
No, but it is a trans woman, and you yourself just said you think prisons should segregate by biological gender. You would apply that to all trans women.
If you think everyone should have it why take it away from those that do? Yes it's bullshit she can get it and I might never be able to afford it but I'd never take it away from her.
CornBurrito
Member
Solution is a single payer system. Not to fuck over other people.
I'd have no problem moving the murderer in question to non gen pop in a women's prison. My beef is that tax dollars are going to their transition over young talented people seeking the same transition who might amount to being more than a scumbag killer.
Until that's fixed every dollar going to a situation like this is a dollar not going to preventative care that could save someone's life or help provide funds to someone who isn't a murderer make the transition.
Prisoners get "free surgery" all the time, it's just not for something as misunderstood.
"Instead of saying something terrible, I'll just let you know that I would have said something terrible if I could have."
"Instead of saying something terrible, I'll just let you know that I would have said something terrible if I could have."
"Instead of saying something terrible, I'll just let you know that I would have said something terrible if I could have."
There are plenty of other ways to get the government to pay for your transition if you really care: Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, state schools, etc.
Inmates make like fifty cents an hour. That's why the state is required to pick up their health insurance.
What other medically indicated procedures care should we withhold from prisoners, who usually have no other way to receive health care? Maybe dialysis? If someone gets shanked, just let them bleed?
Couldn't even make it all the way down the first page. Honestly, I don't even know why "NOT GONNA SAY ANYTHING :LOL" responses aren't banned.
BattleMonkey
Member
We have record debt and we are wasting money on a killer. *shakes head*
No sympathy for her. Transfer his ass to a different prison or whatever, but lets not waste our money
Life threatning treatment is pretty different.
No sympathy for her. Transfer his ass to a different prison or whatever, but lets not waste our money
Life threatning treatment is pretty different.
Apparently Kosilek wasn't a man when he killed his wife for some people. Sure she is a woman now, but it was not the case back in 1990.
In cases where the individual in question has female physical characteristics (this individual has breasts), the situation becomes considerably more complicated.
Opportunity costs. There are better uses for that money.
Anything that isn't a life saving measure.
Basically the same care that the shitty care that the average poor American can get except they haven't murdered anyone.
Noone has given me a single reason why a murderer should be able to recieve this treatment for free when my friend who is applying for graduate work in physics and is nose deep in school debt can't get it. Until I can find a reason I will find this expenditure of tax dollars to be madness and wasteful.
That's basically what I'm saying. Women go in women's prisons; men go in men's prisons. I have no idea where you get the "enemy of women" designation from.
I don't see why this sort of thing shouldn't be treated, unless you think that prisoners should only get treatment for illness and injury if it is directly life-threatening (as if attempted self-mutilation and suicide isn't life-threatening either). If that means that prisoners are receiving better care than private citizens, I think that suggests more about problems with our health care system than with our prison system.
She was always a woman.
More complicated how? More complicated knowing how fucked up the idea of segregating by biological sex is? Probably will back out of this thread, I'm less interested in defending a convicted murderer and more interested in educating people about trans stuff.
I feel like you are coming at it backwards. I can say that your friend should get it to. Just becuase the general population gets fucked is no reason to carry on fucking everyone.
Okay. FtM transgendered person who has a vagina commits a crime. This person self-identifies as a man. Is this person housed with the men? If yes, good luck with that.
Now, imagine you're a female prisoner in a women's prison. A new inmate comes in, but this one has chest and facial hair, a male physique, and a penis. How comfortable are you now?
If the answer is an entirely separate ward for the transgendered people, that's something else to consider.
Pollux
Member
I'm actually very divided on this.
On one hand, I'm a firm believer of the "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" line of thinking; so whatever the government wants to do with tax dollars once I pay them is fine by me. I've got more important things to worry about.
But on the other hand, I have a hard time bringing myself to care that much about a murder's quality of life when there are people far more deserving of this treatment than she is.
So it's not that I don't necessarily support the reasoning behind the decision, I just don't feel uncomfortable supporting it from a moral perspective. I know that doesn't make any sense but it's hard to explain...
Omegasquash
Member
I support this, but do so only with a chip on my shoulder. I have no problem with a person receiving federal help in getting their gender corrected.
I don't agree with making a convicted murderer's life more livable.
I don't agree with making a convicted murderer's life more livable.
That's a budgeting issue. It's basically a non-sequitor. It's like saying we should buy one less bomber because the funds could help starving kids in Africa. It's true, but it means that we have to make a conscious choice about where to move the money we save.
If there is a government program that exists to provide free or highly discounted sex changes to young, talented people, I doubt they're going to turn people away because their money was spent giving operations to prisoners. Prison care has a budget, other things have a budget, and money gets spent. Denying these operations to one group isn't going to magically transfer them to the other group unless separate action is taken.
In which case, I'd rather just provide care to everyone, because it's important for all people who suffer from gender dysphoria.
That's too bad for you if you live in the United States of America.
Truly, you have demonstrated no ill intent.
Until there is a government program that exists to provide free sex changes to young, talented people, I'd argue that there's no way we should spend the money for a guy who murdered his wife.
Priorities. Opportunity costs.
In this case, the cost of appealing the decision is certainly higher than the surgery, but it never should have made it before a judge.
Counting all the legal fees, this clusterfuck has probably cost several teacher's salaries.
Are you ignoring people's posts or are you transphobic? She's a woman.
Omegasquash
Member
Rest assured it's principle, not financially driven. It might have cost me a few pennies all told, which is fine. Take some. I think there are plenty hiding in my car somewhere.
Interpretation of the 8th is still just that, and there's nothing I can do about it for what it's worth.
Sure, you believe she was a woman in a man's body up until she got her surgery, that's fine... But before that surgery, she was still a boy/man for me. Being a man or a woman isn't only a question of what's in your mind. But i don't want to waste more time debating that here, it's just going to derail things and one side will never be able to convince the other as they are both dead set on what's what anyway.
So shake your head as much as you want about what i consider a man or a woman, i don't really care.
Meh, not worth it. All the legal fees will come out to a lot more than the $20k or so this would cost, assuming that is what this would cost. I got that figure from Gaborn, so who the fuck knows. That's a guy who thinks we could save money by eliminating the FDA.
In our current health system, I think that's a good compromise actually.
And could equally apply to any other prisoner that wants a "quality of life" surgery, whether it's for improving appearance or what have you. Offer the surgery and ways to work off the costs while incarcerated.
You're factually incorrect.
I understand this sentiment, but how do you determine who more deserving is? Since your sentiment is based on moral judgement, you have to make (say) a list of people who need that money based on some sort of moral index. And then give the money to the most deserving. Or if you say there's no need to make a list but the money can go to anyone who hasn't committed as big a crime as murder, then you need to draw a line beyond which people don't deserve taxpayer money. Or if it's a case by case basis then the question would become if the person deserves the money or not, irrespective of others, and I don't think that's possible to answer.
Anything that involves drawing a line or making a distinction is going to be difficult to answer in many cases. See Sorite's Paradox. There's always some gray area in the middle where you have to make a judgement call.
I don't see this particular case as existing in that gray area.
Pollux
Member
I would say that sex change operations should not be provided to prison inmates, period, until those same operations are able to be obtained by members of the general public. If the state wants to provide a sex change operation to improve someone's quality of life then it would hold a raffle of some kind and give a sex change operation to the general public. But until all people should get this sex change operation then those in prison should not be able to get one that will be paid for by the taxpayers.
I lived in Boston for 5 years and some of the roads are shit and falling apart, use this money to fix those - not to pay for this operation that is not necessary.
I understand people are going to argue vehemently with me about the "necessary" comment, but let's be honest, it is not necessary for someone to live. And the examples that some people have been using of comparing sex change operations to cancer treatment are disingenuous at best and outright absurd at worst.
CornBurrito
Member
Trans people have biological differences, notably in the brain. It isn't just what they are in their mind. By the way, sex and gender are different.
Also isn't this post basically a slap in the face to trans-GAF members who aren't yet able to, or haven't competed their transition?
I don't even see this as something that should be approached from a moral perspective.
I can agree with this because it puts it as a rights issue. That prisoners should not be more privileged than rest of the citizens.
There's always a better place that money could theoretically be used. We could be sending children to school with the money we spend on office chairs for civil servants. With the money we spend giving kids healthier school lunches, we could be keeping more people from starving on the streets. That's not an excuse to withhold money from things that do good: it's a reason to try to make our other programs better.
And this money simply isn't coming from the same pool. The Massachusetts Board of Education isn't going to start firing teachers because the Department of Corrections had to fund this operation.
Dental care isn't necessary for someone to live either, yet we don't deny it to prisoners, even though many people in this country don't get that for free. Should we just let their teeth rot and fall out? Should we leave their broken bones to heal on their own? If a prisoner is clinically depressed and suicidal, should we only take action when they attempt to kill themselves, just to ensure they don't die? I bet a straitjacket and a separate cell are cheaper than actually treating mental illnesses we know how to treat.
It's an absurd situation, and I have difficulty believing you actually mean what you say, unless you don't agree with the Eighth Amendment. What seems more likely to me is that you just don't think gender dysphoria is a serious issue for the people suffering from it, and is something they could easily deal with on their own if they had to.
The death penalty isn't expensive, our appeals process is expensive.
Unless the Department of Corrections has an unlimited budget, this is coming from somewhere. It just seems like a horrible allocation of funds.
Orthodontic care would be a better analogy, IMO. I'm not sure if prisoners get that. Do they?
If it's coming from anywhere (maybe they have enough money in their budget to cover it, after all), it's probably coming from somewhere else within that department. But I don't know. Either way, you have no way of knowing where that money would be spent if it weren't spent here. Judge the spending on its own merits.
I think spending money on a procedure judged by doctors as medically necessary for someone the state is obligated to give proper medical treatment to is an appropriate use of funds.
We're at an impasse then. Agree to disagree. The judge in this case agrees with you anyway.
Judging it on its own merits, I don't see the use in spending $20k to make a murderer more comfortable. But to each his own.
You seem to know a bit about public sector budgeting. How are unexpected outlays like this covered? Do departments have rainy day funds they can draw from when they have expenses like this?
I believe they do, unless PhoenixDark is wrong.
Considering she's trying to kill herself and mutilate her genitals without the surgery, I think saying it's to make her "more comfortable" is definitely understating things. Which I guess is why we're at an impasse.
Ah well.
This country wastes so much money.
The money is going towards a service.
CornBurrito
Member
I wonder what weekend_warrior spends his money on and what he considers to be a waste.
What he spends his private money on is irrelevant if he considers this public spending wasteful.
I used to blow $500 a year on cigarettes. A complete waste of money. Did that disqualify me from criticizing our military budget?
CornBurrito
Member
I assumed "this country" also included the people within the country. That was probably an incorrect assumption. My bad.
I don't have a problem calling transgendered people a man or woman after their surgery...because they are one both in body and mind at that point. But before that, when i see someone with a man's face, muscular, with hairy legs, chest and arms, flat chest, mustache or beard, manly voice and i know there is a penis and testicles down there... it's hard to call him(fine... HER) a woman, even if they think they're one.
And if you believe i'm factually incorrect for thinking like that... well there is a lot of "factually incorrect" people in the world then. No one i know, be it family, friends or coworkers would see someone like that and say "She is a nice friendly woman." Good luck trying to break that way of thinking of the general population, you got a lot of work to do. I wish you luck.
I'm not trying to be an ass when i say this, it's just how most people see it.
CornBurrito
Member
It is called showing respect. Show some fucking respect to the numerous transgendered individuals on this forum that have not yet physically transitioned or are still in the process.
If someone defines themselves as female, use the proper pronouns for them. If your friend came out to you and said they identified as female, would you honestly go "sorry dude, no you aren't until you get surgery?"
Yes, people who don't know that person's situation will get the gender wrong based purely off appearance. Not sure how that applies here when we do know how the details.
Asthma doesn't usually kill people because it is so easily treatable. Take away the inhalers and you'll see quite a few more deaths
Just looked it up, 1/4 of all ER visits are because of asthma
I wasn't trying to offend anyone, and if i did i'm sorry, so i think it's better that i stay away from these kind of threads from now on before i end up in the GAF graveyard for a few weeks because i said something i shouldn't have and a mod think it was too much.
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