Transgender prisoner sues Florida demanding to be allowed hormones behind bars... shortly after another trans criminal is found dead in her cell

Reiyn Keohane, pictured, is suing the Florida Department of Corrections to demand hormone treatmen

A transgender prisoner is suing the Florida Department of Corrections to demand hormone treatment just days after a different transgender Florida inmate was found dead in her cell.

In a suit filed in federal court in Tallahassee Reiyn Keohane, 22, claims she is receiving cruel and unusual punishment because she needs the hormone treatments to avoid depression.

The suit comes shortly after convicted murderer Justin Lee Naber was found dead in her cell at the Dade Correctional Institution on August 6.

The family of the transgender woman said she had taken her own life.  

In a handwritten document written before she died Naber said it was 'cruel and unusual punishment' to be forced to use a male name. She wanted to change her legal name to Stacy Lorraine Naber.

'Inmate Naber was pronounced deceased on August 6, 2016. At the time of the inmate's death, he was in administrative housing at Dade Correctional Institution and was housed alone,' a Department of Corrections spokesman told the Miami Herald. 

Naber fatally stabbed her roommate in a fight about rent money in 2011 and was found guilty of second-degree murder two years later.

Since being incarcerated in men's prisons, Keohane has also tried to take her own life and attempted to castrate herself.

'This treatment is absolutely necessary to my ability to mentally function,' Keohane wrote in one grievance to prison officials. 

'Without it I consider self-harm and suicide every single day. It is the only thing that matters in my life in this moment.'

The suit comes just days after convicted murderer Justin Lee Naber, pictured, was found dead in her cell at the Dade Correctional Institution on August 6

Keohane was arrested in September 2013, one month after beginning hormone treatments. 

Her decision to plead guilty to stabbing her roommate was motivated by a promise that hormone treatments would continue while she was in prison, according to the lawsuit filed on her behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union.

She was sentenced to 15 years for the attack in Fort Myers.

Keohane has felt she was born with the wrong gender since she was 12 and began seeing therapists when she was 13. 

By age 14, she began living as a female. She legally changed her name when she was 17 and began hormone therapy when she was 19.

A spokesman for the Florida Department of Corrections said: 'The Florida Department of Corrections has not yet received this lawsuit but will thoroughly review it upon receipt.

'Once we receive the lawsuit, we will thoroughly review it along with any associated claims.'

In a blog posted on the ACLU website she claimed: 'I have been forced to strip with men, and been slapped and hit for telling the officers in charge of the search that the rules say I must be searched separately.

'I have been handcuffed, thrown to the ground, and held down so officers could shave my head. 

Naber was found dead at Dade Correctional Institution, pictured, earlier this month

'I have been called a punk, a sissy, and a f***** - I have been beaten while handcuffed for asking to see mental health professionals.'

The lawsuit also complains that female underwear was taken from her when she was transferred to a new prison and officials refused to return them. 

The suit seeks to force the department to let her wear female clothing and to grow her hair so she can style it as a woman would. Her prison mug shot shows her with a crew cut.

'I am a transgender female and am not comfortable wearing male underwear — it is a discrimination on the basis of sex or gender to force a person to act in a certain way because of their sex,' Keohane wrote in another complaint to prison officials. 

For confidential support in the US call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.

For confidential support in the UK call the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details.