The American Civil Liberties Union has stepped beyond its customary defense of the indefensible. The communist outfit’s latest crazy lawsuit demands that taxpayers pay for the “transition” of a baby murderer into a woman.
The murderer is Jonathan Richardson, who masquerades as a woman called Autumn Cordellioné. Or, as the ACLU’s lawsuit says, “an adult transgender female prisoner confined in a male institution.”
And by “institution,” the ACLU doesn’t mean the Bughouse. It means the Big House. Richardson is serving time at the Branchville Correctional Facility in Perry County, Indiana, about an hour southwest of Louisville, Kentucky.
The Lawsuit
The risible 10-page lawsuit is a concatenation of kooky claims rooted in the equally kooky “science” that says men can turn into women and women can turn into men.
Among the highlights are that Richardson, who suffers with “gender dysphoria,” was “assigned the sex of male at birth [but] has identified as female since she was six-years old.”
Though doctors prescribed female hormones to treat Richardson, he’s still a mess. “She,” the ACLU alleges, has “attempted suicide because she could not stand the fact that her sex at birth fails to match the fact that she is a woman and cannot tolerate her male body.”
As well:
She has also lived as a woman to the extent possible in a prison designated to house only men. She has requested gender-affirming items, and has been permitted to obtain [bras], panties, make up, and form fitting clothing.
Despite the receipt of hormonal therapy, she continues to suffer the serious negative symptoms of gender dysphoria. Specifically her genitals remain a source of extreme and continuing distress, which is getting worse. The very sight of her genitals causes her to have great anxiety. She has soiled herself rather than use the toilet because of the stress of seeing her genitals.…
She believes that the only remedy for her persistent gender dysphoria, and the serious harm it causes her, is to receive gender-affirming surgery, specifically an orchiectomy and vaginoplasty [removing the penis and testicles and creating a fake vagina].
In other words, Richardson is faking it to get into women’s prison.
The prison system’s big mistake was giving Richardson the hormones and women’s accessories. It implicitly conceded the absurdity that “transgender” ideology is legitimate science, and that “gender-affirming care” is real medicine.
Noting that normal prisoners receive such surgeries, the ACLU says the state law that prohibits “transgender” surgical mutilation is “unconstitutional” because it violates the federal Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.
The lawsuit also falsely alleges that the prison is violating Richardson’s right to equal protection of the law.
In addition to declaring the law unconstitutional, the ACLU wants the court to bill taxpayers to remove Richardson’s manhood. The court must “enter a preliminary injunction, later to be made permanent, enjoining defendant from enforcing Indiana Code … requiring defendant to take all steps necessary to provide plaintiff with gender affirming surgery, including the necessary preparatory steps prior to performance of the surgery, and providing the surgery itself.”
Richardson’s Crime
Of course, the ACLU’s lachrymose tale of Richardson’s “gender dysphoria” didn’t elaborate on his crime. He strangled his wife’s 11-month-old daughter when the mother was at work — a crime to which he confessed.
When Richardson was on suicide watch in jail while awaiting his trial, “a disturbance erupted in the suicide cell, and officers suspected that Richardson had a role in instigating that disturbance,” court records say:
Lieutenant James Spence, a corrections officer, escorted Richardson out of the cell to talk to him in an attempt to determine the source of the cellmates’ discontent. Richardson explained that he and the others were upset because of a lack of privileges for inmates under suicide watch. Lieutenant Spence then asked Richardson what he was being incarcerated for, and Richardson responded “Murder.” At that point, another officer checked Richardson’s booking sheet and advised Lieutenant Spence that Richardson was incarcerated for reckless homicide. When Lieutenant Spence relayed that information to Richardson, he stated “well all I know is I killed the little f***ing bitch.”
In his appeal, Richardson claimed that the confession was inadmissible because it violated his Miranda rights, and that the prosecutors never proved he actually committed the crime.
The court didn’t buy those lies, and upheld his conviction.
The ACLU does not explain why Richardson married a woman if he has always believed he is one. Maybe he’s a lesbian, too.
Gender Dysphoria
Had Richardson been executed instead of receiving a 55-year prison sentence, Indiana’s prison system wouldn’t be dealing with yet another of the ACLU’s pro-murderer crusades.
Most likely, Richardson is a fetishist who derives sexual pleasure from dressing in women’s attire and accessories.
If he really suffers with “gender dysphoria,” the false belief that one is the wrong sex, hormones and genital mutilation are not the appropriate treatments.
Dr. Paul McHugh, psychiatry professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, says “gender dysphoria” is akin to anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder.
“Its treatment should not be directed at the body as with surgery and hormones any more than one treats obesity-fearing anorexic patients with liposuction,” he wrote in 2015:
The treatment should strive to correct the false, problematic nature of the assumption and to resolve the psychosocial conflicts provoking it. With youngsters, this is best done in family therapy.
