The Virginian-Pilot
RICHMOND — A Virginia inmate who was born a male but surgically altered to be a female because of severe birth defects claims in a lawsuit against state officials that she should be held in a women’s prison.
Deena Kaye Myers, 28, was going by the alias “Scott” when she was convicted of 11 felonies, including robbery and several auto thefts, and sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2001. She is being held in an all-male dormitory at Deerfield Correctional Center in Capron.
Myers was born a male with cloacal exstrophy, a defect that includes an exposed gastrointestinal tract and bladder. Traditionally, males born with the disease were sexually reassigned soon after birth, as was Myers.
Myers’ birth certificate lists her as a female.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Richmond, seeks $25 million in damages, that prison authorities change her records to reflect that she is a female and that she be transferred to a women’s facility.
The prison system doesn’t comment on litigation, spokesman Larry Traylor said.
According to the lawsuit, Myers suffers from spina bifida with partial paralysis of the legs requiring use of a wheelchair, clubbed feet and urinary and intestinal problems. Myers claims prison officials have violated her rights under the Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act by holding her in an all-male institution.
Myers said she questioned why she was being held in a male facility when she was first assigned to Deerfield. Myers claims Department of Corrections physicians twice - in 2008 and 2010 - examined her and found she did not have male genitalia.
Prison officials have refused to transfer Myers. The lawsuit claims the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the issue. The Justice Department did not return a call seeking confirmation of an investigation.
Myers claims that in June, prison officials told her the matter was a “medical issue” that was being reviewed. A month later, she was informed that the physician recommended she stay at Deerfield.
Myers claims the prison forced her to take testosterone injections for several years - to leave segregation and be with other inmates — but that she stopped taking them in 2008 because they made her aggressive.
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