Thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Alaska Mental Health Trust, the ACLU of Alaska just completed a new detailed transgender rights guide for Alaska prisoners, along with several other pamphlets that deal with inmate voting access, religious practices and how to file various complaints against prison employees.

According to ACLU Alaska Prison Project Director Megan Edge, the guides have been distributed to state facilities throughout Alaska.

The Alaska Mental Health Trust’s official description of the $50,000 ACLU grant makes no mention of transgenderism. Instead, it explains that the grant’s purpose was to update the old 2010 ACLU prisoner rights guide to “explain the grievances and appeals process more effectively and how to access civil legal resources.”

Within these broad parameters, the ACLU created its transgender guide, which is largely cut and paste from the Dept. of Corrections regulations. The guide walk prisoners through the steps of how they can get diagnosed as transgender upon entering the prison system, and then demand cross-sex treatments while incarcerated.

Thanks to a controversial settlement in 2021, the State of Alaska now uses its state-funded Medicaid program to pay for cross-sex hormones and transgender surgeries.

“If you identify as transgender and/or are seeking treatment or accommodations for gender dysphoria, you will have to self-identify to the Department of Correction,” the guide states. “This can happen during the medical screening process at booking or at any point during incarceration.”

It goes on to explain that a mental health professional will then conduct an assessment and obtain any relevant mental and medical records, if they exist. It notes that prisoners need no prior record of transgender treatment in order to claim a that identity upon entering the prison system.

After being evaluated for various medical problems and sexual disorders, a clinician will review a prisoner’s case, the guide explains. A “treatment team” will then provide a provisional diagnosis of gender dysphoria and refer the case to the institution’s psychiatrist for final confirmation.

For those deemed transgender, the guide notes that the Alaska Dept. of Corrections “develops individual treatment plans through its Gender Dysphoria Management Committee (GDMC), made up of the Chief Mental Health Officer, the Chief Medical Officer, the treating psychiatrist or psychiatric provider, the regional medical officer, a mental health clinician, and a healthcare provider.”

In describing the treatment plan, the ACLU guide states that they may vary depending on the “goals,” but could entail mental health services, cross-sex hormones and transgender surgeries, although these are not guaranteed.

The Alaska Department of Corrections regulations state that cross-sex hormones and surgeres will only be permitted for “therapeutic purposes,” not for “cosmetic or elective” reasons. However, if the DOC medical team deems that hormones or surgeries would serve an essential “therapeutic” end, they may be allowed.

“If you were receiving hormone treatment in the community when you were booked, you will be referred to a DOC health care provider,” the ACLU guide states. “If the medical provider determines that the risks associated with stopping treatment are greater than the risks of continuing treatment, and the incarcerated person understands the risks associated with the treatment and consents, hormone therapy will continue for up to 30 days or until the GDMC develops a treatment plan for the individual.”

Thanks to a controversial settlement in 2021, the State of Alaska now uses its state-funded Medicaid program to pay for cross-sex hormones and transgender surgeries.

According to DOC reguations, inmates who are successful in getting a transgender diagnosis, are still not permitted to be housed with prisoners of the opposite biological sex.

The ACLU guide explains that DOC houses male and female inmates separately, and “defines biological sex as categories of male or female characterized by sex chromosomes, genital formation, reproductive capacity, or secondary sex characteristics, for example, breasts or Adam’s apple.”

It adds, however, that prisoners who are deemed transgender “should be allowed to shower separately from other incarcerated people.”

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