Inmate wants penis removed at taxpayers’ expense
In court documents recently filed in the Federal Court of Canada she is Katherine Anne Johnson, 61, a woman serving a life sentence in a Fraser Valley men’s prison for beating Horace Stevens, her former roommate, to death with a baseball bat. In Correctional Service of Canada reports, he is “Ms. Johnson,” an inmate properly held at a men’s prison because “his” penis remains intact. It’s a circumstance Johnson wants changed through a procedure called a “penectomy,” the medical amputation of a penis, at taxpayers’ expense. Johnson has tried the procedure before, at home. After having her testicles surgically removed in 1979, she attempted to sever her penis with a razor blade (it was later reattached after she lost consciousness due to blood loss). Johnson’s application to the Federal Court argues the surgery, which would permit her to move to a women’s prison, has been unreasonably delayed by Correctional Service of Canada. Johnson says she lives in fear at the men’s prison, where for years she has exchanged sex with other inmates for protection.