SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Attorneys for a recently paroled transgender inmate say California has agreed to let stand a court order that could have provided her with state-paid sex reassignment surgery.
The settlement announced Tuesday won't help Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, who was released from prison in August.
But her attorneys say the settlement means that an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of San Francisco will stay on the books as a legal precedent for other transgender inmates.
In October, California prison officials set the nation's first standards for determining when transgender inmates should receive the surgery.
The Transgender Law Center says the state also agreed to pay nearly $500,000 to cover attorney's fees and costs.
Corrections department spokesman Jeffrey Callison declined comment.
