In 2009, a California man murdered a wealthy couple in cold blood in order to obtain enough money for a transgender surgery. Last year, the convicted murderer received that surgery at taxpayer expense, thanks to policies championed by former state Attorney General Kamala Harris.
John Jacobson Jr. answered an ad from Thomas and Jackie Hawks, who wanted to sell their yacht and gradually cultivated their trust. On November 15, 2004, Jacobson entered their yacht, beat the couple, and forced them to sign over the 55-foot boat and bank account information to him. Then he tied the couple to an anchor, and threw them into the water to drown, before drinking a beer from their refrigerator and going fishing from his newly-acquired ship. Jacobson, a former child actor who now identified as a woman, had a clear idea of what he would do with his share of the money.
“I wanted the surgery,” Jacobson, who now goes by the name Skylar Deleon, explained to ABC News. He wanted surgery, but he got sentenced to death row.
Enter Kamala Harris.
As California attorney general in 2015, she had to defend the state against a lawsuit from Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy, a convicted murderer who wanted the state to pay for his transgender surgery. But Harris lost the case and never filed an appeal.
Soon another convicted murderer, Rodney Quine, sued the state, and Harris agreed to a settlement that created a landmark policy change: From this point forward, California taxpayers would foot the bill for inmates’ transgender procedures, up to and including surgery.
Thanks to the policy change, Jacobson/Deleon’s murder achieved his desired objectives. “I did receive Gender Affirming Surgery and Breast Augmentation on April 5, 2023. I began transitioning when I first got to San Quentin. I started hormones in 2009 shortly after being evaluated,” wrote Jacobson in a January 17 letter to the Washington Free Beacon.
“My transitioning was definitely tough but I have made it,” wrote Jacobson.
Harris later bragged about her role in changing California policy.
“When I learned about the case, I worked behind the scenes to not only make sure that that transgender woman [sic] got the services [he] was deserving — it was not only about that case. I made sure that they changed the policy in the state of California so that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desired,” then-candidate Kamala Harris told Mara Keisling of the National Center for Transgender Equality Action Fund at its October 2019 “TRANSform the White House” conference.
She boasted, “It may have been one of the first, if the not first in the country, where I pushed for that policy, in a department of corrections.”
“I feel very strongly about this,” Harris concluded. “At its core, it’s a civil rights issue. It’s a justice issue. And it’s an issue for humanity.” The LGBTQ publication The Advocate published similar comments from candidate Harris in a glowing story in 2019.
As vice president, Kamala Harris has acted to impose this policy on the entire nation. In April, the Biden-Harris administration sued Utah, accusing state officials of imposing “a biased and unnecessarily prolonged” process before injecting criminals with taxpayer-funded cross-sex hormones. Biden-Harris officials asserted these policies violate Title II of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which does not mention gender identity at all.
However, the brunt of the lawsuit aimed to force prison officials to house a trans-identifying male in a women’s prison. The administration’s Justice Department also accused the conservative, religious state of refusing to allow the male inmate to require female officers to pat him down.
Letting male convicts — including sex offenders — who identify as women stay in female correctional housing is a “basic right [which] extends to those with gender dysphoria,” said Kristen Clarke, the administration’s handpicked assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, who also served in the Obama administration.
Former President Donald Trump recently took out a new campaign ad highlighting Kamala Harris’s out-of-the-mainstream support for taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prison inmates.
“Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you,” the ad concludes.
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
Reprinted with Permission from The Washington Stand – By Ben Johnson
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.