Victim of transgender inmate speaks out

Brady Summers dated Mason Edmo, now Adree Edmo, for two years. It was his first relationship since coming out. It did not end well.

“He would beat me on a constant basis,” Summers said. “I had to keep my head low. I had to be careful what I said, careful what I did. And the final straw of me escaping that was him beating me with a frying pan.”

Edmo went to jail, but tried to reconcile with Summers when he got out. It also did not end well. Not long after that, Edmo was in prison for sexual abuse of a child under the age of 16. It was then that Edmo began to get treatment for gender dysphoria, or conflict over feeling like he, Mason, should be a female. Edmo was also diagnosed with “gender identity disorder” and now identifies as a female and goes by the name Adree. She says that she was living as a female before she went to prison. Summers says Edmo never showed signs of either of these conditions, but was always a masculine, gay man.

“Never once indicated anything of gender dysphoria or sexual indifference,” he said. “He was a predator. He, on several occasions, had his way with me. It was brutal.”

Edmo is currently in a men’s prison. She sued the Idaho Department of Correction to be able to request treatment, including gender reassignment surgery, and live as a woman while in prison. The lawsuit says the IDOC denied her that treatment which led to self-harm. U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill sided with Edmo, saying the IDOC and its health services contractor must provide the surgery. This decision angered many taxpayers, including David Jones who created a petition against the decision.

“It’s not right that we as taxpayers have to be involved with this,” Summers said. “And he never once thought about his victims, our emotional sanity. Because, the only thing the state did for me was put me in Blackfoot South.”

Summers says Edmo is winning her fight against the law and the system, which he believes is not OK.

“He’s getting a surgery, an elective surgery, that people have been waiting for all their life to have and it’s a mockery. It’s unjust,” he said.

Unless there is an appeal, Edmo would be the first Idaho inmate to receive gender confirmation surgery while in the Idaho Department of Correction and only the second inmate in the nation to receive this surgery while incarcerated. Edmo is scheduled to be released in 2021.

Some who are fighting to appeal the ruling have created an online petition.