A trans-identified male serving 40 years for a brutal 2013 murder is suing the Kentucky Department of Corrections over a new law banning public funding for cross-sex hormones and surgeries. Matthew Smith, who now goes by the name Maddilyn Marcum, was convicted of stabbing Eric Schreiber 72 times and slitting his throat.
The class-action lawsuit was filed July 14 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kentucky and, in addition to Smith, represents 67 other transgender inmates who will no longer receive hormones or surgeries on the public dime following the passage of a bill prohibiting taxpayer funds from being used for “gender-affirming care.”
Senate Bill 2 (SB-2), which was signed into law at the end of March, relegates medical “gender” interventions to “cosmetic service or elective procedure[s].”
The bill defines unnecessary interventions as “any procedure, treatment, or surgery to enhance or alter the appearance of any area of the head, neck, and body, including… [p]rescribing or administering cross-sex hormones in amounts greater than would normally be produced endogenously in a healthy person of the same age and sex.”
SB-2 further states that “public funds shall not be directly or indirectly used, granted, paid, or distributed for the purpose of providing a cosmetic or elective procedure to an inmate in a correctional facility.” The law came into effect on June 27 this year.
Representing the 68 convicted criminals, the ACLU argues that “reducing, terminating, or withholding HRT care violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.” The Eighth Amendment bars “cruel and unusual punishment” of incarcerated inmates, while the Fourteenth Amendment – instituted to address the treatment of those who were formerly enslaved – prevents states from infringing on citizens’ privileges without due process.
According to the complaint, Smith was given a diagnosis of gender dysphoria in 2009, at which point he began taking “estrogen and anti-androgens to feminize the body” in the four years leading up to the crime for which he is incarcerated. The ACLU refers to gender dysphoria as a “serious medical condition,” citing Standards of Care created by the controversial activist group the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
Attorneys for Smith, William Sharp and Corey Shapiro, are demanding the court issue a temporary restraining order barring the DOC from enforcing the new law, SB-2.
Smith was convicted of murder on August 3, 2015, and is currently detained at Northpoint Training Center, a medium-security male correctional facility in Boyle County serving a 40-year sentence for homicide.
While attending a New Year’s Eve party in 2013, Smith fatally stabbed Eric Schreiber 72 times. Smith had previously met Schreiber earlier that year, and befriended Schreiber’s step-daughter, Corina Wallace. News outlets covering the trial have reported that “Smith was a man” when the two first met – but, by December that year, Smith was “transitioning into a woman.”
Attorneys for Smith argued in court that Schreiber and Smith had a strained relationship, and that on their first meeting at a Fourth of July party, Schreiber had attempted to grope Smith. Despite this, Smith decided to attend a New Year’s Eve Party at the home of Schreiber’s sister-in-law, Debbie Long.
Schreiber would be found dead at 7AM the following morning, stabbed dozens of times and his throat slit. During the trial, Smith claimed he killed Schreiber in self-defense out of fear that the man was attempting to rape him. According to Smith’s testimony, Schreiber pressed himself against him, at which point he grabbed two knives from the kitchen and ran outside. Smith claims Schreiber pursued him and pinned him down, and that he began stabbing the man repeatedly in an act of self-defense.
Smith had no defensive wounds and admitted to others at the Long residence, including Schreiber’s wife Vanessa, that he had killed him. When police arrived on the scene to arrest Smith, he was found calmly washing the blood off his hands.
During the trial, Smith stopped taking feminizing hormones and appeared in court presenting as a man. However, he was consistently referred to as a woman, and his defense portrayed him as the victim of a male who intended to violently sexually assault him.
“We’ve heard a lot about the number of stabs,” said Smith’s attorney, Shannon Sexton during court proceedings. “In the commonwealth of Kentucky, we have a right to stand our ground.
You don’t have to back down. If you’re a woman and someone wants to rape you, you don’t have to wait until they tear your panties off.”
But Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Lawrence Hilton highlighted Smith’s masculine appearance in court.
“The wig the defendant came to the party in, it’s off,” said Hilton. “The makeup the defendant had worn to the party, it’s coming off. Maddie Smith is transitioning herself to Matthew Smith, the strong masculine male Corina saw at work. At this point, Matthew Smith was ready to kill.”
A disturbing piece of evidence was submitted by prosecutors during Smith’s murder trial: a drawing that Smith admitted to creating. The drawing is described as depicting a female figure standing in front of a table with a feather duster placed on top of it. Alongside the figure, Smith had written three sentences: “You better dust good for me or you’ll get the whip again!”; ‘Yes, mistress, as you wish,”; and “Bend over that table like a good sissy!”
In 2016, Smith appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial court erred by permitting the drawing to be shown in court as evidence. The appeals court agreed with Smith that the court had erred, but responded that the “mistake” was “harmless.”
The description of Smith’s drawing aligns with similar content found online, often referred to as “sissy captions.” These images are produced by men who identify as transgender women, and often use photographs of women and girls, with disturbing sexual text placed as “captions” alongside. The content is sexually sadomasochistic in nature, representative of a sexual fetish for humiliation and being forced to dress of behave in ways associated with subservience and femininity.
This is not the first time the ACLU has initiated a lawsuit on behalf of a man with a “sissy” fetish. In 2019, an ACLU lawsuit against the New Jersey Department of Corrections resulted in a settlement which required the state to allow violent male inmates to self-identify into the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women.
The lawsuit was launched on behalf of a convicted terrorist who claimed to be a transgender woman. In 2023, Reduxx revealed that Daniel Demers, who was anonymized in court documents as “Sonia Doe,” had been engaging in online fetish communities where adult men fantasized about being prepubescent girls.
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