Five transgender inmates have filed a lawsuit against the Utah Department of Corrections and the Utah Department of Health & Human Services, challenging a new state law that bans medical treatment for them while incarcerated.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Salt Lake City earlier this week, accuses Utah’s prison system of instituting a “blanket ban on the initiation of hormone therapy without any consideration of Plaintiffs’ individualized medical needs and the medical judgment of Defendants’ own medical providers.”

The inmates, Virginia Tucker, Stephanie Dombroski, Sandy Phillips, Dakota Grunwald, and Amberli K. Morrigan, have demanded access to prescribed hormone therapies and gender reassignment surgeries. The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah and Lambda Legal, which are r

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