An inmate serving 50 years to life in a California prison for men has filed a lawsuit asking the court to order the prison to allow and pay for gender reassignment surgery.

The reason she believes this is the state's duty? Her safety. Stevens says the prison has failed to protect her by leaving her in cells with men who threaten and abuse her.

Her name is Lyralisa Stevens, and she was born a man. But before she was convicted of murder she had silicone injections in her breasts and hips to make her form more feminine. And the prison has been providing hormones since she was incarcerated. She says being made to serve possibly the rest of her life in an all-male prison when she is, for all intents and purposes, female (if one excludes the dangly bits she's yet to have removed) is cruel and unusual punishment.

The case is currently in the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco. If the court rules in her favor, it will make California the first state in the nation to require its prison system to provide gender reassignment surgery.