The man who set the precedent for being the first U.S. inmate to receive a sex change while behind bars isn’t adapting well to life in a women’s prison.
Convicted murderer Shiloh Heavenly Quine (formerly Rodney James Quine) and an accomplice kidnapped and fatally shot 33-year-old Shahid Ali Baig, a father of three, in downtown Los Angeles in 1980, stealing $80 and his car during a drug- and alcohol-fueled rampage.
Quine had been housed in men’s prisons for 36 years despite living as a woman since 2009 but was successful at getting California taxpayers to foot the bill for getting his Johnson lopped off and now he has reportedly submitted a court filing complaining about being treated poorly in a female prison.
The top grievance is that due to restrictions against sharp objects Quine is unable to shave and now sports a beard. Quine is referring to the prison as a “torture unit” and is claiming he is being treated unfairly.
AP reports:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The first U.S. inmate to have taxpayer-funded sex reassignment surgery says she’s been mistreated since being transferred to a California women’s prison, where she now has a beard and mustache because officials have denied her a razor.
In a hand-written federal court filing, convicted killer Shiloh Heavenly Quine called her new housing at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla a “torture unit.” She said she’s unnecessarily isolated from other inmates and denied basic items.
State officials say she’s being treated like other female inmates. All initially are denied privileges like razors and TVs as they are evaluated.
Quine, 57, had the surgery she had long sought in January and was moved from a men’s prison last month. She said she is being treated as if she’s a newly arrived inmate and denied rehabilitation programs and privileges even though she’s been serving a life sentence since 1981.
Quine is housed alone in a cell but said she still has no privacy to perform required intimate post-operative procedures and is enduring “a restrictive isolation” that is pushing her toward anxiety, depression and sadness.
Her beard and mustache are having a “huge impact on day to day life” and are making the transition to life as a woman more difficult, she wrote in a filing received Friday at the court.
The department has “no legitimate penological objective but harassment” in denying shaving access, she wrote. Quine asked the federal judge overseeing her lawsuit to order prison officials to provide electrolysis to remove her facial hair, or at least a razor.
Corrections department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said all female reception center inmates are routinely denied razors and televisions along with other privileges while they are evaluated. Inmates can’t have razors until officials are confident they won’t harm themselves or others.
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It’s no surprise Quine is from the state that voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton.
California has no problems with piling this sort of unnecessary surgery on the taxpayers’ back—as if taxpayers in California aren’t overburdened enough.
You can’t make stuff like this up.
