Court Won't Hear Appeal on Hormone Therapy Law

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court won't consider reinstating a Wisconsin law banning publicly-funded hormone therapy for inmates who identify as transgender women.

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from state officials, who have been trying to get the 2005 law reinstated since it was blocked by a federal judge weeks after its passage.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the law violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment because it denies medical treatment. Some of the plaintiffs had been on hormones for years before the law was passed.

Wisconsin state officials passed the law after an inmate who had received hormone therapy filed a lawsuit to try to force the prison to pay for his sex change.