Robert Kosilek - Adult Life, Transgender Status and Abuse

Adult Life, Transgender Status and Abuse

From 1967 to 1968, starting when Kosilek was about 18 years old, a doctor victimized Kosilek, exploiting her difficulty in obtaining medical treatment for her gender identity disorder. The doctor prescribed hormone therapy in exchange for sex, in an arrangement constituting medical malpractice. Kosilek later said that, while she was on hormone therapy, she "felt normal" for the first time in her life. Kosilek also took hormones for several months in 1971 and 1972 (when she was about 22 to 23 years old), eventually developing breasts.

As a young adult in her early 20s, Kosilek survived many violent attacks from men who were hostile to her transgender status. In the early 1970s, when Kosilek was imprisoned in Chicago, prison officials chose to house her with male inmates, placing her at risk of violence and abuse. Some of the inmates targeted Kosilek because she was visibly transgender, and assaulted her on multiple occasions. In 1971, when Kosilek was 22 years old, a group of inmates brutally gang-raped her. Prison officials failed to protect Kosilek, and the next year, in 1972, a group of men gang-raped her a second time.

In another incident, during a time when Kosilek was not imprisoned, two men attacked Kosilek outside of a gay bar. The men later admitted that they specifically targeted Kosilek because she was transgender. The two assailants beat Kosilek badly, hitting her with a brick. After these assaults, Kosilek stopped taking female hormones.