A transgender prison inmate who had been the first to win a court order requiring California to pay for her sex-change surgery will be paroled instead.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday opted to allow a parole grant awarded to Michelle Norsworthy, serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, to stand. At the same time, lawyers for the state told a federal appeals court they are dropping their challenge to the order for Norsworthy’s surgery, calling it “moot.”
Norsworthy has lived as a woman in California’s men’s prisons for about 15 years, receiving hormone therapy, counseling and women’s undergarments.