Sex Change for Prison Inmate Michelle Kosilek: Should We Pay? | New Republic

Sex Change for Prison Inmate Michelle Kosilek: Should We Pay? | New Republic: At the age of four, Kosilek announced to his mother, a waitress at greasy spoons, that he was really a little girl. (Kosilek’s father was serving a long sentence in federal prison for mail fraud.) Not long afterward, she abandoned him at an orphanage, only to come back for him six years later, while on an alcoholic bender with another boyfriend. Home was no more welcoming than before: He was frequently punished for dressing as a girl, and his mother’s father began raping him. Gradually, he realized he could earn more with his body than the dollar his grandfather gave him every week, and at the age of twelve, he became a child prostitute on the streets of Chicago.