Death Row Inmate Receives Taxpayer-Funded Transgender Surgery

In 2009, John Jacobson Jr. was sentenced to death for the brutal murders of Thomas and Jackie Hawks, whom he killed to fund a sex-change surgery.
In 2009, John Jacobson Jr. was sentenced to death for the brutal murders of Thomas and Jackie Hawks, whom he killed to fund a sex-change surgery.

United States: In 2009, John Jacobson Jr., also known as Skylar Deleon or the “Yacht Killer,” was put on death row for the murders of Thomas and Jackie Hawks to get money for a sex-change procedure.

After fourteen years, he was able to fulfill his dream of having a taxpayer-funded sex-change surgery because of Kamala Harris’s policy.

When Jacobson enticed the couple into their yacht off the coast of California in 2005, he tied them to the anchor and flung them overboard, murdering them. He acknowledged committing the crime to get his surgery when speaking with ABC News.

“I wanted the surgery, and I knew I 100 percent wanted the surgery,” Jacobson said.

The Washington Free Beacon claims Jacobson had surgery in 2023 at government expense because of “policy and precedents set during Kamala Harris’s time as the state’s attorney general.”

“I did receive gender-affirming surgery and breast augmentation on April 5th, 2023,” Jacobson, who now goes by Skylar Deleon, wrote in a letter to the outlet.

In addition, Jacobson stated that he has been hoping to be moved from his present residence in San Quentin to a women’s jail.

“I should transfer fairly quickly but the prison makes us go to a committee to determine whether or not [sic] which prison we go to even though I have had both surgeries,” Jacobson told the Free Beacon.

According to a 2019 campaign questionnaire that CNN recently published, Harris supported taxpayer-funded sex-change procedures for immigrants held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Additionally, she assured the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that transgender prisoners would get the required assistance.

“It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition,” Harris told the ACLU.

“I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained,” she continued.

“Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment,” she added.

In terms of how Kamala contributed to the surgery, she first stopped a lawsuit filed by murderer Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy in 2015 while she was the attorney general of California.

She said that Norsworthy’s intended sex-change operation was not medically required. However, Harris abandoned her promise to appeal to the Ninth Circuit after a district judge dismissed California’s case before California Governor Jerry Brown (D) granted Norsworthy parole.

The Free Beacon reports:

“When another inmate, Rodney Quine, who was serving a life sentence for murder, filed a similar lawsuit amid the state’s battle with Norsworthy, Harris negotiated a settlement in which the state paid for Quine’s sex-change surgery and hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees. Quine made no concessions to force the state’s hand.

When California publicly announced the settlement, it also announced a wholesale policy change: “California has become the first state with a policy of providing sex reassignment surgery for some prison inmates,” the New York Times reported. Going forward, the state would pay for mastectomies and genital reconstruction surgeries.

Harris talked about the Norsworthy and Quine cases during her first presidential bid in 2019, apologizing for her initial opposition to Norsworthy’s lawsuit and telling reporters she took “full responsibility” for the legal briefs her office had originally filed.”

The fact that Jacobson received his desired operation at taxpayer money infuriated the victims’ families.

“I don’t know what right [Harris] had to decide that he gets surgeries now. I mean, why should they get all these benefits?” Jackie Hawks’ mother told the Free Beacon. “They killed people, right? Took people’s life. He killed my daughter and son-in-law, and now he gets what he wants.”

Should anyone in prison receive tax-payer-funded transgender surgeries?