Washington state has spent over half a million dollars on medical procedures for transgender-identifying inmates over the last four years.
Since 2020, when Disability Rights Washington leveled its lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections (DOC), 44 inmates across nine of the state’s eleven prison facilities have received taxpayer-funded gender-transition interventions, including top and bottom surgery. The total cost was $592,577.67 through June 2024, and some of the costs were covered by Medicaid, radio host Jason Rantz reported based on documents he obtained from the DOC. Hormone therapy alone, which the DOC solely covers without help from Medicaid, has cost the state over $317,000 since 2020.
As part of a 2023 agreement with Disability Rights Washington, the DOC agreed to accommodate transgender-identifying inmates’ “gender-affirming healthcare and services that are consistent with the Washington Health Care Authority’s Transhealth Program for people living in the community.” The agreement also obliged DOC to retain a gender medical specialist, gender mental-health specialists at each major prison, community consultants for gender medical and mental-health care, and several care navigators and administrators to implement the program.
The DOC does not factor in an inmate’s conviction or remaining prison sentence when reviewing requests for gender-reassignment procedures. At least eleven transgender-identifying male felons are currently housed at the Washington Corrections Center for Women, colloquially known as “Purdy.” Many of them committed violent crimes against women and children.
A transgender-identifying male felon with a violent criminal past was moved out of Purdy back to men’s prison after National Review reported that he had a prohibited sexual encounter with a female inmate. It appears he is now in the process of receiving bottom surgery.
Bryan Kim, who goes by Amber FayeFox Kim, was relocated to Monroe Correctional Facility after a March incident in which a Purdy corrections officer discovered him having sexual intercourse with 25-year-old Sincer-A Marie Nerton. Kim still had functioning male genitalia at the time.
On March 14, in the Medium-security unit of Purdy, a prison guard peered into a cell during a routine check and saw Kim “laying on the floor completely nude from the waist down with their cellmate Nerton Sincer-A on top of them also nude from the waist down actively having sex,” the incident report obtained by National Review read.
“The reason for Kim’s transfer was due to ongoing safety concerns,” the DOC told National Review.
Kim was found guilty in 2008 of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the stabbing of his father, Richard Kim, and the bludgeoning and strangulation of his mother, Terri Kim, the Spokesman-Review reported. Kim killed his parents at their Mount Spokane home on December 5, 2006, as they returned from work. After attempting to clean up the murder scene and hide his parents’ bodies in an outbuilding, Kim went shopping the next day, using his father’s debit card to withdraw $1,000 from his parents’ account. For his crimes, Kim was sentenced to life in prison.
During the transfer to Monroe, a DOC spokesperson told Rantz that Kim “attempted to assault DOC staff.”
A female inmate at Purdy who chose to remain anonymous said Kim was irate about the move. A person from the Purdy clinic told the female inmate that Kim was screaming, crying, and begging them not to send him back to the men’s prison.
“He was so hysterical about the situation that they had to restrain him,” she said. They had to “put handcuffs on, and pretty much drag them to the transport to take them back.”
In protest, the offender began a hunger strike at Monroe, according to an online blog attributed to “Amber Fayefox Kim.”
However, Kim stopped the hunger strike on day 17 because the DOC warned the strike could forfeit his access to transition surgery.
“On Monday, July 8th, I was informed that if I did not end my hunger strike, I would be denied access to an upcoming gender-affirming surgery, so at this time, I am forced to suspend by hunger strike,” Kim said, according to a blog post. “The state is trying to force me to choose between safe housing or a gender-affirming surgery that will allow me to live my life more fully.”
In 2022, the DOC paid for breast implants for inmate Nathan Goninan, who goes by “Nonnie Lotusflower.” Goninan is incarcerated for the second-degree manslaughter of a 17-year-old girl, whose cause of death was determined to be strangulation and whose post-mortem examination showed evidence of sexual assault. He has many other prior convictions, including assault and possession of weapons, and a prior prison discipline record, including assault of other offenders, threatening to assault and “kill” staff, and destroying prison property.
When he transferred from the male facility, Goninan was in the intensive management unit (IMU), designated for inmates who are repeatedly destructive “because he was so problematic,” an anonymous female guard told National Review in 2022.
“They were trying to input him on permanent intensive management unit set status,”she added. “He would be on lockdown 23 hours of the day. It’s because he is aggressive and has a long history of violence, especially when he doesn’t get his way.”