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The U.S. District Court ruled on July 29, 2024, that transgender people locked up in Connecticut's prisons are entitled to receive gender-affirming health care.
The decision comes after a five-year legal battle initiated by a convicted murderer.
Nicholas "Veronica-May" Clark has been incarcerated since 2007 for a viscious attack on his estranged wife and the brutal murder of her new boyfriend.
At the time Clark broke into his estranged wife's home and started to wildly beat her new boyfriend to death with a metallic club as he slept, "crushing his head under the repeated blows of the homemade steely bludgeon to which Clark had affixed four metal screws to rip flesh."
Clark also "savagely beat his estranged wife with the large-diameter pipe" leaving her severely injured.
Today, Nicholas goes by the name Veronica-May, and resides at Cheshire Correctional Institution where he was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2016.
When Clark was taken into Connecticut Department of Corrections (DOC) custody, he presented as a man but allegedly had been living as a woman on and off throughout his life. Clark said he presented "as a man" once incarcerated out of fear of experiencing violence in prison for identifying as transgender.
Clark was eventually diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2016, and claimed he was "denied" gender-affirming treatment. He went on to sue the DOC Commissioner, Angel Quiros, and others, in 2019 for failing to treat his gender dysphoria, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
The American Civil Liberties Union offered Clark representation in 2021.
Clark's lawsuit revealed how he requested medical help in April 2016 for gender dysphoria, and was subsequently diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a DOC doctor in May 2016. Then on July 25, 2016, Clark tried to castrate himself by slicing open his scrotum with a nail clipper.
In January 2017, Clark again requested hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery, describing his situation as “simply intolerable” and DOC’s treatment of him as “cruel and unusual.”
In May 2017, Clark retained legal assistance from a clinic tied to Columbia Law School. The clinic wrote a letter that helped Clark obtain an appointment, and shortly thereafter, he began hormone therapy.
It took two years after the first appointment to obtain a follow-up.
By October 2021, a doctor retained by Clark's attorney, Dr. Brown, evaluated Clark, and determined that Clark needed genital gender-affirming surgery, citing the Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People (versions 7 and 8) issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (“WPATH”), an organization accused of conducting pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments on vulnerable people.
Clark's gender dysphoria diagnosis was confirmed by the DOC gender therapist, Dayne Romano, who said genital gender-affirming surgery was “fundamental and vital to [alleviating Clark’s] gender dysphoria."
Romano further suggested that a vaginoplasty might be appropriate because “[s]he relates much of her gender dysphoria to her male penis.”
DOC started to look for a surgeon for Clark in January 2022, and extended that search to include 30 other states with which the DOC had Interstate Corrections Compact (“ICC”) contracts. Only three states—Colorado, Massachusetts, and Oregon—had ever performed a vaginoplasty or had a process in place to perform such surgeries for inmates.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) further indicated that it had completed two vaginoplasties on incarcerated individuals but was not willing to accept a transfer of Clark to provide the surgery.
Then the DOC turned to a Yale surgeon, Dr. Joshua Sterling, who was newly or soon-to-be performing vaginoplasties in Connecticut. He had been hired by Yale in October 2022 to help start the transgender health program. At the time there were no surgeons in Connecticut performing vaginoplasties.
Clark met with Dr. Sterling in-person for an initial surgical consultation on June 4, 2024.
Dr. Sterling explained that the biggest barrier to surgery would be hair removal, since Clark had not yet begun the process, which could take up to a year.
Clark was concerned about whether the DOC would provide consistent, adequate, and appropriate access to gender-affirming care during this time.
The first was to convince the court that inmates are entitled to gender-affirming care.
In fact, on Sept. 15, 2023, the U.S. District Court issued a summary judgment in favor of Clark. Now-retired Judge Vanessa Bryant found that all of the DOC healthcare providers had been deliberately indifferent to Clark’s medical needs.
The second "trial phase" took place in July 2024.
The court had decide whether, as a result of Judge Bryant’s deliberate indifference ruling, Clark was entitled to injunctive relief, and if so, what the DOC should be ordered to do.
Ultimately, Judge Victor Bolden ordered an injunction on July 26th to make sure Clark continues to receive the "necessary" gender-affirming care and does not suffer additional irreparable harm.
The DOC estimates that no more than 60 people who identify as "gender diverse" are in custody at the moment.
Five of them are seeking surgical interventions specifically related to their gender identity, including Clark.
This state has lost their minds. These judges need to be removed making decisions like this. Stop playing God. It’s pretty disturbing this goes on in Hartford. More tax dollars being used by Dr. Frankenstein. He must be a democrat socialist.