A convicted child rapist is demanding the Oklahoma Department of Corrections pay for laser hair removal, hormone treatment and counseling so that he can transition from a male to a female.
Ronny Edward Darnell, an inmate in Helena Prison, claims he should have been born a woman and says the state is violating his constitutional rights by failing to provide medical care for his transition.
He filed a lawsuit last year claiming that by not providing him with the services he requires, the Department is subjecting him to 'cruel and unusual punishment'. The suit is pending in federal court.
The repeated rejections by the Oklahoma justice system came as a judge in Massachusetts ruled the state would pay for gender reassignment surgery for a convicted murderer living as a woman.
It is believed that Darnell, 44, was not receiving treatment before he was convicted in 2005 of kidnapping and repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl in Newkirk in 1997, The Oklahoman reported.
He was a drifter when he lured the girl into his vehicle by pretending to ask for directions and then drove her to four different rural locations and raped her three times.
The girl reported the rapes and investigators collected evidence, but Darnell was only caught years later when his DNA was matched to the crime using a nationwide database.
Darnell pleaded guilty to two counts of rape and one count of forcible sodomy in 2005 and he was sentenced to 50 years behind bars.
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TXT 24
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