On October 17, 2007, Plaintiffs, three transgender women at a Wisconsin Department of Corrections ("DOC") facility who had been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder ("GID"), filed a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Division. This case is related to Sundstrom v. Frank (PC-WI-0010 in the Clearinghouse's database).



Represented by attorneys from the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., and the ACLU Foundation, Inc., Plaintiffs named employees and/or officials of DOC and a few correctional institutions as Defendants. Plaintiffs asked the court for declaratory and injunctive relief to redress Defendants'violations of their rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In the Second Amended Complaint filed on April 01, 2009, Plaintiffs claimed that Defendants had violated the Constitution by enforcing 2005 Wisconsin Act 105 to terminate and deprive their medical treatment for their serious health condition, with no exercise whatsoever of individualized medical judgment and in contrast to the treatment Defendants provided to other similarly situated inmates at DOC.

Plaintiffs sought an end to those actions of Defendants that violated Plaintiffs' right to equal protection and their right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, pursuant to the Fourteenth and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and a declaration that 2005 Wisconsin Act 105 is unconstitutional on its face.

On October 17, 2007, one of the Plaintiffs filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction enjoining Defendants from reducing or terminating Plaintiff's hormonal therapy. The next day, Judge Charles N. Clevert, Jr., granted the motion.

On February 12, 2008, Judge Clevert granted the parties' request to stay this case. On December 19, 2007, the parties filed their Joint Rule 26(f) Report. The parties agreed that the ruling in the case of Fields v. Raemisch (see Sundstrom v. Frank, PC-WI-0010 in the Clearinghouse's database) would likely decide many if not all the legal issues presented in this case. As a result, the parties requested that this case be stayed until Fields was decided by the court, and on appeal, if any.

On August 18, 2010, the parties stipulated to dismiss the action without prejudice. Accordingly, the case was terminated pursuant to the stipulation.

Xin Chen - 07/17/2011


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