by Luke Mcclure

Created on: January 31, 2009   Last Updated: February 21, 2010

It is a good sign of our intentions when society is concerned with improving the psychological soundness of criminals. If some experts are correct that a person can develop physically as a different sex than they develop psychologically this would cause obvious problems. It would seem to be common sense that many of society's most psychologically damaged people are in prisons, as well as it appears reasonable to speculate that a person suffering from a disorder may be more likely to commit a crime. However, very little can be said for certain about the relationship between gender confusion and crime, and the medical field can only offer speculations on why such a condition exists.

With little known and virtually no research to speak of that links gender confusion with criminal behavior it would be foolish for any level of government to fund sex change surgery. In the the DSMV-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition), this gender confusion is officially known as Gender Identity Disorder (GID). It is true that some who have suffered from GID have found that undergoing a sex change surgery and taking hormones has helped to ease their pain. While many have claimed that this costly and risky procedure has helped, it is also common for such patients to require psychotherapy or counseling to cope, long after the surgery.

Before it should ever be considered to provide sex-change surgery to prisoners, some important questions need to be asked: How many inmates nationally have been diagnosed with GID? Does GID increase the likelihood of someone to commit crime? Should our government be responsible for all individual's psychological disorders that it did not create? Can we afford to provide this surgery? If we cannot answer these questions, how can we even consider providing sex change surgery to inmates?

With what little data exists on the topic, one will find that a very small percentage of inmates suffer from GID as it is outlined in the DSMV. One will also discover that no research demonstrates any solid link between GID and crime. It would be difficult to say the least, to interpret the constitution in such a way as to claim the government has a responsibility to solve every individual's mental and physical health problems, especially those in prison. With our budget deficit, and a national debt of over 10 trillion, the easiest of the aforementioned questions to answer is that we cannot afford to pay for sex change surgery for

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