Court Opinion

ID: 9729735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:47:47.154309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:00.854727
License: Public Domain

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARD, dissenting: The majority states that it does not find the ordinance to be unconstitutional on its face, but it concludes that the ordinance was unconstitutional as applied to these defendants. That conclusion is founded on the premise that the defendants’ conduct was part of a psychiatrically prescribed program to prepare them for sex-reassignment surgery. The only testimony in support of the defendants’ claim was that of the defendants themselves. No psychiatrist was called to testify that the defendants had been diagnosed as transsexuals or that cross-dressing had been prescribed as preoperative therapy. No letter or statement was offered in evidence. Neither defendant named the psychiatrist from whom he was receiving treatment. Indeed, the defendant Wilson, on cross-examination, testified that he didn’t know what sex-reassignment surgery would involve and said he did not know the doctor who would perform it. The majority ignores a basic consideration — that the credibility to be given the defendants’ testimony was for the trial judge — and proceeds to discuss therapy in preparation for sex-reassignment surgery. That is a subject of sensitivity and importance, but I consider it is not reached here. UNDERWOOD and RYAN, JJ., join in this dissent.