Opinion ID: 6226274
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: supplemental gender-dysphoria examination

Text: The district court granted summary judgment against Hardeman on her claim that she was improperly denied a supplemental gender-dysphoria evaluation. We review the district court’s decision de novo. See Sealock v. Colorado, 218 F.3d 1205, 1209 (10th Cir. 2000). Summary judgment is appropriate when “the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s serious medical needs constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976). “Deliberate indifference involves both an objective and a subjective component.” Sealock, 218 F.3d at 1209 (internal quotation marks omitted). The objective component requires the plaintiff to show that her medical need is “sufficiently serious”; that is, “it is one that has been diagnosed by a physician as mandating treatment or one that is so obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize the necessity for a doctor’s attention.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We assume, without deciding, that gender dysphoria satisfies the objective component. 7 Appellate Case: 21-7018 Document: 010110645802 Date Filed: 02/16/2022 Page: 8 The subjective component requires the plaintiff to show that the prison official knew of and disregarded “an excessive risk to inmate health or safety.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). “[T]he official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.” Self v. Crum, 439 F.3d 1227, 1231 (10th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). To survive summary judgment, Hardeman needed to point to evidence allowing an inference that the served defendants consciously disregarded the possibility of gender dysphoria in failing to provide for a third examination. But there is no such evidence. When Hardeman continued to insist on treatment for “Suspected” gender dysphoria, R., Vol. II at 85, a second evaluation was conducted, and it diagnosed Hardeman with histrionic personality disorder—not gender dysphoria. Although Hardeman disagrees with Jones-Pilkington’s diagnosis, “a difference of opinion with the medical staff . . . does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation.” Johnson v. Stephan, 6 F.3d 691, 692 (10th Cir. 1993). Moreover, “a misdiagnosis, even if rising to the level of medical malpractice, is simply insufficient under our case law to satisfy the subjective component of a deliberate indifference claim.” Self, 439 F.3d at 1234. Hardeman continues to insist that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to her medical and mental-health needs when they failed to provide hormone therapy and items such as cosmetics and female attire. But that claim was not exhausted in so far as it extends beyond the denial of an additional gender-dysphoria examination. In any event, 8 Appellate Case: 21-7018 Document: 010110645802 Date Filed: 02/16/2022 Page: 9 the denial of hormone therapy, etc., was predicated on the diagnosis by Jones-Pilkington; so those additional claims could not survive summary judgment absent evidence that the defendants knew that the diagnosis was incorrect. We therefore affirm the summary judgment.4