Georgia has banned the use of state tax dollars to pay for so-called sex-reassignment surgeries for trans-identified inmates as efforts to crack down on the life-altering procedures continue at the state and federal levels.
Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed Senate Bill 185 into law Monday, following its passage by the Republican-controlled Georgia Senate in a 37-15 vote and the Republican-controlled Georgia House of Representatives in a 100-2 vote.
While the vote tallies suggest a high degree of bipartisan support, 71 House Democrats were absent from the vote, while only three joined with Republicans to support the measure. In the Senate, only four Democrats supported the bill.
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The measure prohibits the use of “state funds or resources” to pay for inmates in state prisons to receive “sex reassignment surgeries or any other surgical procedures that are performed for the purpose of altering primary or secondary sex characteristics.”
The legislation also bans the use of state funds to pay for inmates’ “hormone replacement therapies” and “cosmetic procedures or prosthetics intended to alter the appearance of primary or secondary sexual characteristics.”
The bill outlines the “limited instances” where such treatments can take place, specifically in cases where inmates are intersex, the treatments are deemed medically necessary, or in cases where inmates were already receiving the treatments with the caveat that they can only be used “for the purpose of transitioning off therapy.”
Kemp’s approval of Senate Bill 185 comes nearly four months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The executive order includes a provision directing the U.S. Attorney General to ensure that “no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
The approach contrasts with what has taken place in other states. A 2023 report found that California had spent approximately $4 million on such gender procedures for trans-identified inmates after the state became the first to use taxpayer funds to pay for them in 2017.
Even in states where lawmakers did not approve the use of taxpayer funds to pay for inmates’ gender transition procedures, courts have ruled that failure to cover such interventions amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Last year, a federal judge ruled that the Indiana Department of Corrections must provide a trans-identified inmate convicted of strangling his infant stepdaughter to death with gender transition surgery.
The judge agreed with the inmate that a state law prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for gender transition procedures amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The state of Indiana vowed to appeal the ruling.
In 2012, a federal judge ruled that Massachusetts’ failure to provide convicted murderer Robert Kosilek with gender transition surgery constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Kosilek, convicted of murdering his wife, identified as a woman named Michelle. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Kosilek’s appeal three years later.
While Massachusetts enabled Kosilek to obtain hormone drugs, remove facial and body hair and allowed him to dress like a woman, it stopped short of granting the convicted murderer’s request for surgery.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
