A Florida inmate who demanded to be referred to by a female name committed suicide in his jail cell.
Justin Lee Naber died on Aug. 6 inside Florida City’s Dade Correctional Institution, the NY Daily News reports.
Naber filed a handwritten lawsuit claiming that being forced to use his male birth name was “cruel and unusual punishment”.
His family said Naber was supposed to be on suicide watch when he hanged himself in his cell.
He was in protective custody, and yet he hanged himself,” his aunt, Lee Kahn, told the Miami Herald. “It struck me as odd,” she added.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) assisted Naber with his lawsuit after it was filed.
The ACLU argued that the name change — though not legal — was a “form of therapy” for Naber who suffered from gender dysphoria.
Gender dysphoria is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as a disorder that causes sufferers to reject their birth sex for an idealized image of the opposite sex.
Female sufferers often adopt an ultra masculine exterior image, while male sufferers project an ultra feminine image that is typically unrealistic of the average biological woman.
Naber was serving a life sentence for stabbing a man to death in 2013.
The lawsuit was dropped last week in light of Naber’s death.
