California pays for inmate’s gender reassignment surgery

A transgender California prison inmate who was born male but identifies as female underwent gender-reassignment surgery paid for by the state this week in what is believed to be the first such case in the United States, her attorneys said Friday. The state had promised to refer inmate Shiloh Quine, then 56, to a surgeon and pay for the procedure as part of a 2015 settlement making the state the first in the United States to offer inmates a regular path to such treatment. Quine, who is serving a term of life without the possibility of parole after convictions in 1981 for murder, kidnapping and robbery, had the surgery on Thursday, said Jill Marcellus, a spokeswoman for the Transgender Law Center, which negotiated the settlement.