Con’s sex-change surgery stopped

Convicted wife-killer Michelle Kosilek will have to wait a bit longer to learn if his taxpayer-funded sex-change surgery can commence.

Michelle Kosilek

The controversial procedure has been postponed, a federal judge ruled today, until the state’s appeal of the operation is decided. The Patrick administration appealed the surgery to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf told Department of Correction lawyers today he is putting the brakes on the entire matter because once the surgery is over, there’s no going back if the appeals court rules in favor of the state.

Kosilek, formerly known as Robert Kosilek, is living as a woman at the all-male MCI-Norfolk state prison.
A Dec. 19 hearing was also set today in federal court in Boston to hear demands from Kosilek’s lawyers for $800,000-plus in legal fees.

Kosilek legally changed his name to Michelle two decades ago. He is serving life without the possibility of parole for the 1990 strangulation of his 36-year-old wife, Cheryl Kosilek. Hormone treatments have enabled him to develop breasts. He briefly received electrolysis treatments in 2008.

Wolf remarked in his September decision that Kosilek is “a man who truly believes that he is a female cruelly trapped in a male body.” He found the Department of Correction violated Kosilek’s Eighth Amendment right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment.