Michelle-Lael Norsworthy (1964 - ) convicted of murder

​After high school, as Jeffrey, Norsworthy became a police informer, joined the army national guard, ran around town inebriated, and carried a loaded gun.

“I was an extremely aggressive, non-thinking person. I did anything I could to suppress my femininity”. 

One night in 1984 Norsworthy, then 20, encountered a man in a bar in Fullerton (close to Los Angeles) whom he had helped bust in a drug deal years before.  They argued, first in the bar, then in the parking lot, and Norsworthy got a gun from his car.  It went off three times, nicking the man’s femoral and carotid arteries.  Norsworthy began dressing his wounds as help was summoned. The man died six weeks later.

Norsworthy was sentenced in 1987 to 17 years to life in prison for second degree murder. Norsworthy takes full responsibility for the murder –

“the crime I committed I’m responsible for. I’m not trying to mitigate that in any way”. 

Most of Norsworthy’s 28 years incarceration was spent in Mule Creek state prison in Ione, California. Most of the first years were violent: fights, self-mutilation, etc. It was not until 1994 that Norsworthy was able to put a name to various feelings. A prison psychiatrist, or maybe the priest, used the term ‘transsexual’. Norsworthy looked it up in a dictionary and it clicked.

She came out and started expressing as female – she now declared her name to be Michelle-Lael. However it took many years of agitation before she was transferred to Vacaville, the only California prison with a Gender Clinic.  She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 1999, and it was another year after that before she was allowed female hormones. She requested a bra, was denied, appealed and was so allowed.

In 2009, again in Mule Creek, she was gang-raped with the prison guards doing nothing. This left her with broken teeth and Hepatitis C – for the latter she was not allowed any treatment.

Finally in 2012 her psychologist recommended gender-affirmation surgery – however he was quickly transferred to another prison. In 2013 Norsworthy was again denied parole as “a danger to society”.

In 2014 she filed a lawsuit, arguing that denying her surgery was cruel and unusual punishment. In addition one doctor added that, without surgery, her already damaged liver would suffer from the high dose of hormones – after surgery they could be reduced.   In April 2015 U.S. District Court Judge Jon Tigar agreed, ordering California to provide her transition surgery. This was a groundbreaking decision. Norsworthy was the first person incarcerated in California to get such a ruling.

Michelle-Lael in prison, 2015

All of a sudden she was returned quickly – two years early - to the parole board because of  "a change in circumstances or new information” and parole was granted – officially this was recognition of Norsworthy’s model behaviour: she hadn’t been written up for a disciplinary infraction for years. The same day the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation filed a motion to toss out Judge Tigar’s opinion, arguing that since she’d been paroled, the ruling was moot. The Transgender Law Center, who were representing her, went back to court, arguing the state was trying to make the precedent (not to mention the cost of surgery) go away by releasing her.

In August 2015 the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation agreed with Shiloh Quine, 56, also suing for transgender surgery, that it would pay, but only if all parties agreed that no precedent was being set.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did rule that the timing of Norsworthy’s release implied “there was at least some chance that the defendants influenced the parole process.” Norsworthy’s case was allowed to set legal precedent for other inmates.

After release Michelle-Lael, aged 52 after 28 years in prison, initially lived in a halfway house in San Francisco for female drug addicts. Although she had been sober for more than 20 years, it was the only place that would take her. She was then able to receive treatment for Hepatitis C. She is sort of cured but has permanent damage to her liver.

She had affirmative surgery in 2017 provided by Medi-Cal. She has been attempting to setup a charity to help trans persons and other women in San Francisco.

The California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation announced a new policy in 2015 re trans prisoners, and a few were even granted surgery, but most were not.  A 30-page guidance document was released in March 2020 that aligns more closely to WPATH criteria, and permits primary care doctors to prescribe hormones.

• Ed Pilkington. “'Prison within prison': a transgender inmate's years-long battle for treatment”. The Guardian, 26 July 2015. Online.
• “Transgender convicted murderer, 51, seeking sex-reassignment surgery whilst in jail will now be RELEASED from prison after serving 28 years of her sentence”. The Daily Mail, 7 August 2015. Online.
• Bob Egalko. “Transgender pioneer out of prison, on a new path”. San Francisco Chronicle, March 19, 2016. Online.
• Annie Brown. “Michelle’s Case”. The California Sunday Magazine, May 17, 2016. Online.
• Jacob Anderson-Minshall. “This Trans Ex-Con Helped Make History” Advocate, March 07 2017. Online.
• Chris Johnson.  “Calif. prison system updates policy on trans inmates as scrutiny grows”.  Washington Blade, March 11, 2020. Online.

Trans in Prison: Part V: to the National Offender Management Service, New prison guidelines, 2011

Part I: to the conviction of Oscar Wilde
Part II: to Stonewall
Part III: to Farmer v. Brennan
Part IV: to the Synthia Kavanagh Human Rights Case
Part V: to the National Offender Management Service, New prison guidelines, 2011
Part VI: Comments & Bibliography

2000.	Cis woman Marilyn Shirley, drug possession, Federal Medical Center at Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, was raped by a senior prison officer. She manage to hide her semen-stained sweatpants until she was released, and they were evidence. Officer Michael Miller was sentenced to 12 years.
2000-8.	Storme Aerison, in Colorado Mental Health Institute and then a men's jail for fraud.
2001.	John Pilley, convicted of kidnapping in 1981, was granted an NHS-funded operation in 2001 and transferred to HMP Holloway. In 2006, Pilley was requesting a change back.
	Robert Durst, charged with murder in Galveston, Texas, hired a good lawyer, admitted killing and dismemberment, but pleaded self-defense and was acquitted. He was convicted of bail jumping and evidence tampering, and sentenced to five years, and of carrying a gun across state lines while a fugitive, for an extra five and a half months.
	Richard Masbruch succeeded in castrating himself, and somehow started on female hormones. On transfer to the California penal system as Sherri was regarded as transgender, and was placed in the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. Sherri was thus the only prisoner in the US to be declared transgender and then transferred from a men's to a women's prison.
	Karūseru Maki, performer, Tokyo, was arrested for possession of drugs, and spent 41 days in a male jail because the family registry still listed her as male.
	Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled sex reassignment surgery an “essential medical treatment”.
2002.	Christine White pled guilty after firing five lawyers.
2003.	Canadian federal court agreed withe 2001 Human Rights Tribunal ruling.
	Lawrence v. Texas. Finally the US achieved a nation-wide decriminalization of sodomy, and hence homosexuality. Up to this time nine states−Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia−still banned consensual sodomy without respect to the sex of those involved, and four−Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri−prohibited same-sex couples from engaging in anal or oral sex.
	US Prison Rape Elimination Act, unanimously passed by congress, and even supported by the homophobic Focus on the Family, reduced the ability of corrections officers to remain wilfully unaware. Prisons are obliged to establish zero-tolerance re sexual assaults, provide data on the incidence of rape, and a review panel will determine the best and worst detention facilities. However the passing of this act was not followed by any decline in the prevalence of prisoner rape.
	Amara Vadillo, a Los Angeles porn star, killed a third party in a tussle over a gun. She was charged with Murder in the first degree, Murder in the second degree, Voluntary Manslaughter, Involuntary Manslaughter and an Armed Allegation charge, while the other person in the tussle was not charged. She was sentenced to 20 years to life for Second Degree Murder and an additional 25 years to life under an anti-sniping law. She is in the California Medical Facility prison at Vacaville.
	Maddison Hall, New South Wales, convicted of a 1987 murder. She declared herself to be transsexual, and was transferred to Mulawa Womens' Correctional Centre in 1999, before surgery. She apparently raped some inmates before surgery in 2003.
	Cis woman Amaravathee Denise Wilson, Durban KwaZula-Natal, arrested for armed robbery, was listed as "Denis" and regarded as a post-op transsexual. She was put in the male section of Westville Prison for 6 months where she was raped, sodomized and otherwise assaulted almost every day.
2004.	Group of trans inmates at CMF Vacaville, with some support from prison staff, drew up a reform proposal. They had a series of meetings with administrators, including, eventually, the warden. Then, in January 2005, there was a change in prison leadership and the project was sidelined. (Woodward)
2005.	Donna Konitzer, Wisconsin, was sentenced in 1994 to 123 years for armed robbery at the Wisconsin Prison in Winnebago. She was allowed to start hormones in 1999. In 2000 was sexually assaulted by a guard. Sued that she should be allowed a full transition.
	Roderick Johnson, Texas, navy veteran, cis gay man, was sentenced in 2000 for 18 months to the state Allred prison for burglary. He was seized as property by a gang within the prison who imposed a female name on him, forced him to do housework and rented him out as a sex slave at $5 or $10 a time, After release he sued the guards who refused to help him. The jury found in favor of the guards.
	Rikers Island prison, New York closed down its Category B section for those who declared themselves to be homosexual or appeared to be transgender. It was replaced by 23-hour-per-day lockdown.
	Rachel Tortolini was working as a prison doctor in Hawai’i. Jasmine Goode, Herefordshire, convicted of burglery.
2006.	Wisconsin legislators passed the Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act in response to Donna Konitzer. It prohibited “the payment of any funds or the use of any resources of this state or the payment of any federal funds passing through the state treasury to provide or to facilitate the provision of hormonal therapy or sexual reassignment surgery.”
	San Francisco-based Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project on rape in California prisons found that 59 percent of transgender people reported being sexually assaulted in prison in 2006, compared to 4 percent of the general prison population. (Wallace, 2007).
	Montréal drag queen Luc D’Arcy sentenced to 12 years in Florida for requesting sexual favours from teenagers while in drag. New York trustfunder, Diane Wells, convicted of misdemeanor assault after injuring her mother in an altercation over the will.  She served 60 days at Rikers Island.
	Spanish Socialist Workers Government introduced a new policy of respecting a prisoner's gender and changed name, and placing trans women in women's prisons.
2007.	Sandy-Jo Battista, who has completed his sentence for a 1983 rape, but is still incarcerated, offered to use an inheritance to pay for her sex-change, but was denied permission.
	Raven Navajo, of Las Vegas, killed a fellow drinker during a binge, and pleaded guilty despite the body never being found. Doing 10-to-life in a men's prison.
	Katherine Johnson, reconvicted for murder of her roommate, appealed to the Federal Court of Canada that she have a penectomy and be transferred to a women' prison. Christine White paroled.
	"InEqualities InAction: The case of the Prison Service disappearing Guidelines" by Whittle. Lewis & Al-Alami reports that HM prisons not recognizing Gender Recognition Certificates.
2008.	Alexis Giraldo, 2½ years for petty theft constituting a parole violation stemming from an earlier vehicular manslaughter, was raped by two inmates in 2006 at Folsom State Prison. She informed the guards and nothing was done. She sued. In 2007 San Francisco Superior Court dismissed the negligence claim before trial ruling that California law does not create a "special relationship" between jailers and inmates, but allowed the claim of intentional inflection of emotional distress to stand. The jury was hung. Giraldo was paroled in 2008. Later that year a state appeal court ruled that prison guards do owe their inmates a special duty of care, potentially exposing prison officials to negligence suits if they fail to protect their charges.
	Tania Veilleux, 40 months for sexually assaulting a child when she was a man, legally female under Quebec law and had been approved by the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec for surgery. She was two months in Tanguay, a facility for women, and then transferred to the Ste-Anne-des-Plaines federal prison for men because she is male under Correctional Service of Canada rules.
	Vincent Inametti, Roman Catholic Chaplin at Federal Medical Center at Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, sentenced to 4 years for two counts of sexual abuse of female inmates. DB Karron,New York biomedical engineer, was accused of using part of a government grant to fund transgender surgery for herself and three others.  She served 15 months at the women's Federal Prison Camp Alderson in West Virginia.
2009.	An unnamed pre-op, (more) serving life for manslaughter of his boyfriend who refused to pay for operation, and attempted rape of a female shop assistant when out on licence, won a ruling, in accordance with Article 8 [the right to private and family life] under the European Convention on Human Rights, overriding Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision that she should stay in a men's prison
	Thea Cox, Exeter, breached her suspended sentence by again robbing student flats, was spared jail.
	Veronica Baxter, Sydney, charged with supplying a prohibited drug. She was held at the NSW Silverwater Metropolitan Reception and Remand Centre, a maximum security jail for men, and was found dead 14 hours later. The location against the stated NSW policy 1999.
	Dione Kaeo-Tomaselli, intersex who had corrective surgery to female in 1998, was sentenced to 10 years. She was placed in Halawa Correctional Facility for men, despite complaining that she was a woman. She was raped in the two months before she was transferred to a women's facility. She sued in 2011.
	India. Naz Foundation v National Capital Territory of Delhi struck down much of Section 377 of the Indian penal Code as being unconstitutional.
2010.	Kenyan intersex Richard Muasya, convicted of robbery, harassed and badly treated in prison, was awarded Sh500,000, but his request for a third gender status was rejected. Denise Abbah, a cis woman, jailed in 2003 and thrown in a men's jail because of a clerical error, she sued for R100,000 compensation and was obliged to take a sex test.
	Jasmin Goode, serving 11 years for robbery in Leyhill open prison near Bristol, started transition with hormone patches.
	The Conservative Government of Canada ordered a halt to all funding for gender surgery for inmates.
	Laura Voyce, Merseyside, convicted of 14 counts of downloading indecent images of children, faced 9 months in prison but the judge felt that she could not be kept safe, and suspended the jail term and added 100 hours of community work.
	Jan Krause, Cheshire, who harassed her neighbour for six years, was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, plus a restraining order, 120 hours of community service and a curfew. The judge said that it would be unfair to send her to prison because she would have to to stay in solitary confinement.
	Italy opened a trans-only prison in Emploi, Tuscany. It is intended for the 30 prisoners previously in a special section of a prison in Florence.
2011.	Sandy-Jo Battista. US Court of Appeals ruled that she should get hormone therapy.
	Jovanie Saldana, who had been in the Philadelphia Riverside Correctional Facility for Women for armed robbery, complained about having to give oral sex to the guards. Investigation revealed that she is pre-op, and she was transferred to a men's prison.
	Fields v. Smith. Struck down the Wisconsin Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act as unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. In doing so, the Seventh Circuit laid the foundation for a powerful restriction on legislatures’ ability to enact prohibitions of medical treatments, a restriction that may apply not only to legislation affecting prisoners but also, via an analogous Fourteenth Amendment due process right, to legislation impacting the general public. This was confirmed in 2012 by the US Supreme Court.
	Vanessa Adams who was in a federal prison at Butner in North Carolina, was diagnosed with GID after admissions. The then policy of the US Bureau of Prisons was to provide hormone therapy only for those already on it. She made 19 written requests for treatment, all of which were denied, She attempted suicide and castrated herself. In 2009 she sued with the help of GLBT legal groups, and finally won a ruling that Ms Adams should be provided with the required treatment.
	Ophelia De’lonta, Virginia, 70 years for armed robbery, had won a court order in 2004 to receive hormonal therapy, attempted self-castration.
	Lyralisa Stevens, CMF Vacaville, 50 years for murder, had to have a brain tumor removed. This was believed to be connected to high level of female hormones. Reduced level to avoid this was too low for feminization. She sued that gender surgery was medically necessary. By 2011 had acquired attorneys but failed at the district appeals court.
	Cece McDonald, fashion student in Minnesota, and some friends were attacked by a group from a bar yelling racist and transphobic hate. One of the attackers died in the scuffle. Cece was the only one arrested. From hospital she was taken to a men's jail. She was charged with second-degree murder, and as a plea agreement pled guilty to second-degree manslaughter, and was sentenced to 41 months in St Cloud men's prison.
	Jean Morris, Bristol, convicted of possessing a Class C drug with intent to supply, was spared jail because it would interfere with her transition. Frances Harris, Brighton, convicted of fraud, spared jail in that nowhere safe to put her.
	US Bureau of Prisons announced new rules that trans inmates will be able to start hormone therapy while in prison. There are currently 48 US prisoners in BOP prisons who are recognized as having gender dysphoria.
	Cook County, Illinois, jail announced that it would now jail detainees according to gender identity rather than birth sex.
	England & Wales: National Offender Management Service, Ministry of Justice issued New prison guidelines for trans prisoners. Where to place a post-op without a Gender Recognition Certificate, a pre-op or a non-op with a GRC, a seriously committed pre-op etc. This is expected to end trans convicts avoiding prison because it is unclear where to send them. "An establishment must permit prisoners who consider themselves transsexual and wish to begin gender reassignment to live permanently in their acquired gender … the prisoner is considered to have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 and must not be discriminated against or harassed because of this … Establishments must put in place measures to manage the risk of transphobic harassment and transphobic hate crime … A male to female transsexual person with a gender recognition certificate may be refused location in the female estate only on security grounds – in other words, only when it can be demonstrated that other women with an equivalent security profile would also be held in the male estate … Before a prisoner is placed in custody, attempts must be made to determine which gender is recognised under UK law. This is a legal issue rather than an anatomical one, and under no circumstances should a physical search or examination be conducted for this purpose … There are some women who are guilty of violent crimes against other women and are still managed safely in the female estate. Any transsexual women with a gender recognition certificate who pose similar risks should be managed in a similar way in the female estate … some prisoners, such as female to male transsexual people with vaginas, may feel that they will be very vulnerable if placed in the estate of their acquired gender". www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/offenders/psipso/psi-2011/psi_2011_07_care_management_transsexual_prisoners.doc.
2012.	Following a series of articles in the New York Review of Books, the US Justice Department revised its estimate of prison rape. The new estimate, 216,000 exceeds rapes outside prison. Thus the US is the first county to count more rapes of men than of women.
	Equal Justice Initiative released a report on the frequent rape of inmates at Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama by the male corrections officers.
	Los Angeles Police announce separate detention facilities for transgender inmates. Chicago Police Department's new procedures mandates that perferred names and pronouns are to be used, derogatory language not be used; transpersons are to be transported and jailed alone when possible; access to hormones to continue; possession of needles alone not to be taken as evidence of crime. Tutwiler Prison for Women, Alabama. Equal Justice Initiative released a report on the frequent rape of inmates by the male corrections officers. Japanese Justice Ministry: Prisoners with GID can request a solitary cell, bathe alone, wear underwear and hair style of identity gender. US Supreme Court declined to hear Wisconsin's appeal of the ruling that struck down the Inmate Sex-change Prevention Act. The first year of English and Welsh prisoners being located by legal gender rather than genital status. Non-imprisonment of convicted trans persons for that reason alone has stopped.
	Toronto Don Jail. Guard transitioning on job. Kingston penitentiary. Supply officer transitioning on job. Breanna Bradley Manning, still yet suffering cruel and unusual punishment in a US military prison, was nominated by members of the Icelandic Parliament for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was finally charged, and a preliminary hearing held. the trial is due in 2013.
	Michelle Kosilek won a ruling in federal court that she should be provided sex change surgery.  but this was later suspended. However her lawyers were awarded $700,000 in legal fees. The team offered to dismiss their request for legal fees if the state drops the appeal and pays for the surgery.
	Carla Bruna, female impersonator, sued because put in female jail. Frances Harris, Brighton convicted of fraud again.   This time sentenced to 5 years in jail.
	Jasmine Goode released, appeared on Unsafe Sex in the City, BBC3, and had surgery. Glen Cooper, Whangarei, NZ, sentenced to 2 years 1 month in a men's jail for wounding with intent to injure. Ophelia De'Lonta, in a men's prison, sued again to obtain surgery. Nat Smith & Eric A. Stanley. Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2011. Review.
2013	Paris Green, Fife, convicted of murder, sent to women's prison, approved for transgender surgery, moved to another prison afer sex with other inmates. Walter L. Williams, anthropologist, author of The Spirit and the Flesh, pioneering account of North American two-spirit, accused of sexual predation in Philippines, arrested in Mexico, and imprisoned in Los Angeles. Chelsea Manning  (previously Breanna Bardley Manning) sentenced to 35 years in a US Military prison. Jesiah MacDonald, Nova Scotia, wanted to use the money from the marijuana to pay for his operation, spared jail time. Ashley Del Valle, in Savannah, arrested for exposing breasts, jailed with men. Kimberley Green, convicted wife killer, who does not choose to wear women's clothing, failed in suit to High Court to be allowed to wear a wig in prison. Harris County, Texas, the 3rd largest jail in the US, has adopted a policy of trans prisoners being houses according to gender identity, and addressing them accordingly. New Zealand Ministry of Corrections announced that the New Zealand Cabinet is to change the corrections rules in order to allow prisoners to be placed in a prison which matches the gender they identify with, rather than their birth gender.  Michelle Kosilek, Massachusettes convicted murderer, published her autobiography, Grace's Daughter. Tracy Clark-Flory. "America’s prisons fail transgender inmates". Salon, Aug 23, 2013. www.salon.com/2013/08/23/americas_prisons_fail_transgender_inmates. Jillian Keenan. "Getting Hormones and Surgery for Transgender Prisoners". The Atlantic, Aug 23 2013. www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/getting-hormones-and-surgery-for-transgender-prisoners/278998. "Targets for Abuse: Transgender Inmates and Prisoner Rape". Just Detention International, March 2013. www.justdetention.org/en/factsheets/TransgenderFactSheet.pdf.

Trans in Prison: Part IV: to the Synthia Kavanagh Human Rights Case

Part I: to the conviction of Oscar Wilde
Part II: to Stonewall
Part III: to Farmer v. Brennan
Part IV: to the Synthia Kavanagh Human Rights Case
Part V: to the National Offender Management Service, New prison guidelines, 2011
Part VI: Comments & Bibliography

1995.	Tai Wakefield, in HMP Parkhurst for murder of his uncle, and then of another inmate, applied for and was allowed to change sex. Transferred to New Hall prison for women, he met a woman also in for murder. They joined in a civil partnership in 2010.
	Leslie Nelson, Camden, New Jersey, shot two police officers, and wounded a third in a shootout at her parent's home after she refused to produce her AK-47. She pleaded guilty and was for a while the only transsexual on death row in the US in an all-male institution. After the New Jersey Supreme Court twice ruled that executing ‘such a mentally ill and psychologically disturbed person’ would be cruel and unusual punishment, she was sentenced to three life sentences, with a 65-year bar on parole. She was transferred to the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, in Clinton, New Jersey.
	Willow Arune was arrested in Bangkok having been involved with two Americans with forged documents.
1996.	Valerie Taylor was arrested in California and convicted the next year in South Carolina for a 1978 killing. She was sentenced to 15 years and served two. She served her time in the Leath Correctional Institute for Women.
	Petersen, Stephens, Dickey & Lewis surveyed correctional facilities in the EU, US, Canada and Australia and found that that only 40% had either formal or informal policies for trans persons; while more than half would not initiate hormone therapy, almost half would maintain a previously prescribed treatment; genital status was the overwhelming factor in determination of placement in either a men's or a women's facility. There was no consensus on the risk of physical or sexual assault.
	US Prison Litigation Reform Act greatly reduced the ability of inmates to bring civil claims in Federal Courts. Requires prisoners to exhaust all administrative remedies before filing a claim (even if this means seeking redress from the abuser), and demonstrate that they experienced physical harm prior to filing. It also limited attorney fees for representing prisoners, and barred prisoners from seeking damages for sexual harassment, invasions of privacy such as strip searching, and inappropriate sexual touching.
	London. After fraudulent investing that brought Morgan, Grenfell & Co. down, Investment manager Peter Young avoided trial on the fraud by becoming Elizabeth. A second trial re her being fit to stand trial found her schizophrenic, and that the 1964 Insanity Act pertained.
1997.	"A San Francisco Department of Public Health survey conducted in 1997 found that almost two thirds of MTF respondents had been incarcerated. More than 30 percent had spent some time behind bars during the preceding 12 months." (Quoted in Woodward)
	Peter Langan, white supremacist robber of 22 banks, life with a minimum of 35 years, under his male persona.
	Publication of Katherine Johnson's Prisoner of Gender, who was unable to obtain treatment even though in the same prisons as Synthia Kavanagh. Start of Christine White's bank robbery spree across Canada.
	China legalized homosexuality.
1998.	David Shayler was in a French prison for 3 months until the French courts decided that the UK extradition request was politically motivated and therefore not valid. Christine White caught after a high-speed chase.   Jeanne Hoff, last director of the Harry Benjamin Practice, who had transitioned in 1977, and become a psychiatrist at San Quentin prison, was in the news when she was the only one of three psychiatrists willing to testify that a murdered was competent to be executed.  Defense attorney attorney attempted to impeach her, but did not read her.
1999.	Torey South, served three years for robbery,first at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville where she was prescribed female hormones, and then the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo where she was denied them. She won a court ruling that the California Department of Corrections violated her constitutional right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment by deliberately withholding necessary medical care, ie female hormones.
	Dr Lori Kohler of San Francisco General Hospital started to visit the California Medical Facility in Vacaville every 6 weeks to enable trans inmates to get hormones. (Woodward)
	Singer Cristina Rodriguez of Madrid, convicted of arson as part of an insurance fraud, was sentenced to 3 years in a men's prison, where she was frequently raped. Her weight doubled from 60 to 122 kg, and she suffered obvious physical deterioration.
	Montréal prison guard, Claude-Marc Bardier arranged harassment of his colleagues so that he could get a full-time position. That he was female-bodied came out only after he was arrested. 26 months in a women's facility.
	Surgeon John Brown convicted of malice murder. He is in Soledad Prison.
	New South Wales: The Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act states "any person received into the custody of the NSW Department of Corrective Services (DCS) who self-identifies as transgender has the right to be housed in a correctional facility appropriate to their gender of identification". It says: "Transgender inmates are to be managed according to their chosen gender of identification."
2000.	David Shayler was charged under the Official Secrets Act and sentenced to 6 months in prison, and served seven weeks.
	Kelly Denise Richards, Sussex, sentenced to 17 years for a post office raid in which the postmaster and his baby son were injured, having had surgery while in prison, transferred to a women's prison.
	Secretive cross-dresser and millionaire dermatologist in Boston, Richard Sharpe murdered his wife and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2009 he managed to kill himself.
	Synthia Kavanagh killed her room mate, also trans, in 1985, in Toronto. The judge suggested that she serve her sentence in a woman's prison, but because she was pre-op she was sent to Millhaven Penitentiary. Maxine Petersen of the Clarke Institute refused to approve her for a sex-change as she could not do a real-life test. Synthia filed a human rights complaint, and had the operation in 2000.

Amara Vadillo (197?–) sex worker.

Vadillo was born and raised in Cuba. After emigration to Los Angeles she became Amara. After injections of hormones and silicone, she was a 34 DDD.

She found work acting in shemale videos and performing at the West Hollywood Club 7969 under the name of Sylvia Boots. She became known for her love of the work, and that it showed on camera. She acted in over 50 videos (see ES.Wikipedia for a list), and as she had facial cosmetic surgery several times, she looks different over the course of her films.

She generally got on well with her fellow actors, with one exception, fellow performer Tanya Amadore. After being attacked by three of Tanya's friends outside a nightclub, Amara filed a criminal complaint with the police. In August 2002, Amara dated Jorge Espinoza without knowing that he was Tanya's boyfriend. After sex he brutally beat her and stole her car. Again she filed a police complaint. Three weeks later Jorge returned and shot her in the head. Miraculously Amara survived and still has the bullet in her head. She filed a third police complaint and was unofficially advised to carry a gun for self-defense.

On March 17, 2003 Amara and Tanya encountered each other in the ladies room at the Yukon Mining Co restaurant. Insults, hair pulling and punches started and were continued in the parking lot, and friends of both women joined in. It escalated to the point where Amara pulled out her gun. Tanya tried to take it away from her. It went off and Tanya's hand was seared with gunpowder burns. A few minutes later it was apparent that one of Tanya's friends, Laura Banuelos, was dying of a gun wound. Amara was arrested.

In jail she was able to positively identify Jorge Espinoza to the police for his attempt on her life.

Amara herself was charged with Murder in the first degree, Murder in the second degree, Voluntary Manslaughter, Involuntary Manslaughter and an Armed Allegation charge. Tanya was not charged. After 14 months in jail, Amara's trial lasted one week, the defense rested after one day, Tanya "unequivocally testified" that she did not touch the trigger and that she had not encouraged Jorge Espinoza to shoot Amara.  The jury returned after five hours finding Amara guilty of second degree murder. She was convicted under the California law of transfer of intent that was intended to apply to a sniper situation.

58 people wrote letters and signed a petition urging the judge to reduce the sentence to Involuntary Manslaughter, but Amara was sentenced to 20 years to life for Second Degree Murder and an additional 25 years to life under the anti-sniping law, and that she has to pay $10,000 restitution to Laura's family if ever released on parole.

In January 2006 it was rumored that Tanya died after an incompetent injection of oil/silicone. Some think that this was a hoax to enable Tanya to escape police attention. In either case her video career was over.

An appeal of Amara's sentence in October 2007 was denied.

Amara was initially at Donovan State Prison in San Diego, and is currently in the California Medical Facility prison at Vacaville.

* Not Jorge Espinoza the Chilean football player, nor the boxer.

• "P. v. Vadillo". FearNotLaw, 10/12/07. www.fearnotlaw.com/articles/article15106.html.
• Chubby Chucker. "Re: Sylvia Boots". Tgirl Forums, 12-27-2005. http://tgirlforums.com/yabbse/showthread.php?t=26274.
• John Green "Sylvia Boots". Tribe. http://tribes.tribe.net/shemalelovers/thread/20e6d06b-ef8d-4d6c-b4ec-089fa0bb8896 also at  other sites.

  Wikibin (No longer available)    ES.Wikipedia     

____________________________________________________________

Neither Amara Vadillo nor Sylvia Boots is in IMDB nor the Wikipedia Category: Transsexual pornographic film actors.

45 years plus is longer than many mafia contract killers get.

The requirement to pay $10,000 is what in Sharia law is a called blood money, except that under Sharia, if you pay the money, you don’t go to jail.

The US gun lobby groups that proclaim that you should carry a gun to protect yourself don’t seem to be interested in this case.

Amara is mainly a female name, but sometimes given to boys.  It is unclear whether Vadillo was called Amara at birth, at emigration or later.  However she was charged under that name, so the California prosecution service took that to be her legal name.

The Wikibin article does not even mention the homicide.

Amara and Tanya put down each other and others as 'faggots'.   An indication of their lack of self-consciousness.