Opinion ID: 2761209
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Michelle Kosilek

Text: Michelle Kosilek -- born in 1949 as Robert Kosilek -- is an anatomically male prisoner in her mid-sixties who suffers from gender identity disorder (GID)1 and self-identifies as a female. In 1992 Kosilek was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to a term of life imprisonment without parole for the 1990 strangulation of her then-wife, Cheryl McCaul, whose body was found abandoned in the backseat of a vehicle at a local shopping mall. See Commonwealth v. Kosilek, 423 Mass. 449, 668 N.E.2d 808 (1996). While awaiting trial for McCaul's murder, Kosilek twice attempted to commit suicide. She also once tied a string around her testicles in an attempt at self-castration, but removed the string when it became painful. Since 1994, Kosilek has been housed at MCI-Norfolk, a medium security male prison in Massachusetts. Throughout the twenty-year duration of her incarceration at MCINorfolk, Kosilek has not attempted to harm herself. 1 The term gender identity disorder has recently been replaced with the term gender dysphoria in the medical community. See Am. Psychiatric Ass'n, Gender Dysphoria, http://www.dsm5.org/documents/gender%20dysphoria%20fact%20sheet.pdf (last visited June 3, 2014). To maintain consistency with prior related litigation and evidence in the record, we continue to use the term GID in this opinion. -4-