A transgender prisoner, Nthabiseng Mokoena serving life at Johannesburg Correction Centre, has won the legal right for state provided hormonal therapy.
The Equality Court ruled that “adequate health care”, which must be provided to all prisoners in terms of law, now includes this treatment.
Nthabiseng Mokoena went to the Equality Court of South Africa to request the Department of Correctional Services provide her with hormone therapy after it had previously refused, calling it a ‘cosmetic medication’.
Mokoena is biologically a male but began expressing female identity at seven years old. She was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and robbery which she committed in 2010.
In 2023, she complained to the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS). She explained that while incarcerated her rights had been violated after being denied hormonal therapy and not allowed to wear “feminising clothing”, to use her chosen pronouns.
The court ruled that ‘adequate health care’, which now includes HRT, must be provided to all prisoners in terms of law.
Judge Denise Fisher said that the transgender prisoners are entitled to access a greater standard of health care for their condition – gender dysphoria – than that to which other transgender persons outside of a prison environment are entitled.
Judge Fisher also ruled that the prisoner, Nthabiseng Mokoena, was entitled to express her gender identity, including the use of pronouns “she/her” and to be housed in a single cell or in a cell with other transgender prisoners.
Bongi Sikelo 