Susan Murphy-Milano...

Is there no end to the ways government wastes our tax dollars? Apparently, not.

Consider this crazy case in Wisconsin of Scott Konitzer, who now calls himself Donna Dawn Konitzer.  FYI- Konitzer is serving 123 years in prison for multiple armed robberies and stabbing a fellow inmate.

Konitzer has been receiving hormone therapy at taxpayer expense while in prison. The hormone therapy is normally followed by a sex-change operation. Konitzer wants you and me to pay for it.

State Department of Corrections officials will not allow the surgery. Good for them. Konitzer is suing to have the good people of Wisconsin pay for the operation. In the lawsuit, Konitzer claims that the refusal by the state to follow through with the surgery violates the Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment. He began the treatments in 1999. Sorry, Donna Dawn, denying your sex-change operation is not punishment; your 123-year sentence is punishment. Denying the surgery is simply common sense.

The state was planning on weaning Konitzer off the hormone therapy. However, U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert Jr., a Clinton appointee, stepped in to save the day. Clevert issued a preliminary injunction, which keeps Konitzer's treatments going until the case is settled. 

In his injunction, he writes that "continuing the plaintiff's hormone treatments is more important than saving the state and federal funds that must be expended for the treatments."

Judge Clevert, if you want Konitzer to continue the treatments, you pay for them. It is not the responsibility of Wisconsin taxpayers.

The idea that taxpayers should be footing the bill for hormone treatments or sex-change operations is offensive. Konitzer has no right to these treatments. As an inmate, basic or lifesaving health care is justifiable. Hormone treatments go above and beyond what tax dollars should be spent on. What's next? Liposuction, hair plugs or tummy tucks?

Three Wisconsin legislators are trying to put an end to this nonsense. Reps. Scott Gundrum (R-New Berlin) and Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) and Sen. Ted Kanavas

(R-Brookfield) have introduced legislation making it illegal to use government funds for hormone therapy for prison inmates and residents of mental institutions.

No state in the country provides the surgery for inmates, and Wisconsin should not start. Of course, Konitzer's attorney and the ACLU argue that the prisoner is entitled to the treatments.

No, prisoners are not. Who runs the show here?

Scott Gundrum rightly believes that "it is ridiculous that we need legislation to prevent the Department of Corrections on spending tax dollars for prisoner sex changes, but if they can't do the right thing on their own, it looks like we will have to legislate common sense."

Alex Lee, who is the director of the TGI Gender Project, which defends the rights of transgender prisoners, claims that Konitzer and others like him are being treated differently because of the stigma attached to gender identity disorder. No, they are being treated properly because they are not entitled to receive elective surgery at taxpayer expense.

The bottom line is if Konitzer really wanted the sex-change operation that he is now suing for, he should have thought about that before he got himself in trouble with the law and locked up for 123 years.