There’s a fascinating little case out of El Paso in which a male-to-female transgender person is seeking to marry another woman.
The Texas Tribune reports that the El Paso county attorney is requesting an opinion from AG Greg Abbott about whether the trans woman can marry another woman, given that the trans woman was technically born a male.
Now I’m no expert, but I do believe that in the infamous 1999 case of Littleton v. Prange, a Texas appeals court refused to recognize a marriage between a man and a male-to-female transsexual, saying that you have to go by the birth certificate of the trans person.
But according to the Tribune, lawmakers changed the Family Code in 2009 to allow a sex-change court order to nullify a birth certificate for the purpose of marriage licenses. And it would certainly seem to me that the bottom line here is, you can’t have it both ways.
In other words, if you refuse to accept the existence of transgender people, as Abbott surely does, then you have to go by the birth certificate, right? So, if someone has a birth certificate saying they’re male, as in the current El Paso case, then they must be allowed to marry a woman.
On the other hand, if you refuse to allow this marriage because you accept that the trans person is now a woman, then you have to allow the marriage in Littleton.
It looks like a lose-lose for Abbott and his right-wing cronies, because either way the state will be forced to allow what one group considers to be a same-sex marriage. And in some small way, it underscores the sheer ignorance of transphobia — and of refusing to allow consenting adults to marry the person they love.
UPDATE: The El Paso Times has posted a copy of the letter from County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal requesting Abbott’s opinion. Read it by going here.
Ha! I couldn’t agree more! You’re on point with that one! the thing is, the law has LOTS of loopholes. We’ll have to see how this plays out. Same sex marriage will be a reality, no matter how much the right wing fights against it.
The law does have some loopholes, and quite frankly I’m tired of trying to find them just to be “equal” in the eyes of a very ignorant American society.
I’m one pissed off gay man and refuse to sit quietly.
Hopefully these two lovebirds reap the rewards of this loophole and are able to marry. I can’t help but think in some small way it will be a catalyst that propels the LGBT community forward in our quest for equality.
I’ve taken advantage of this very loophole. If the state recognized my transition as far as marriage is concerned, my wife and I’s marriage would have been annulled when I was made legally a woman.
Have any of u listened to Abbott lately? He talks out of two sides of his head.
Believe me – he will come up with SOME way to deny this!
Mark this as your next lawsuit to be appealed in Texas – starting to look like a big trend down here!
I’ve seen in another article that Ms Hill was born with ovaries, but had sexual specification surgery as a babe and was raised as a male. As an adult she transitioned to female. If Abbott wants to nullify her marriage, he might try and distinguish her case from Littletons on the ground that the original recordal of her birth sex as male was erroneous, so she can’t use that birth certificate. Plus, I read she already has another birth certificate from the State of Washington that lists her sex as female.
However, the change in the law by the legislature, if accurate, ought to make the Littleton case irrelevant now. That law sounds pretty clear. If you present a certified birth certificate listing the sex, then there you go. It sounds to me like the legislature already settled the issue. If Abbott gets too pushy, he could do himself some harm politically. Why would he do that if he can just point his finger at the Legislature and say it’s their fault? He’d have to be crazy to do otherwise. Oh, wait …
Except of course that some states, such as Ohio and Tennessee, don’t issue new birth certificates. And in other jurisdictions, such as the UK, they’re considered “historical records” that cannot be altered, even if superseded by reality – with some specific exceptions.
And 5ARD and 17BHDD syndromes, both well-known Intersex conditions, can cause a “Natural Sex Change” from looking female at birth, to looking male later in life.
Biological Reality collides with law based on religion (suitably disguised as “Natural Law”).
But of course the AG may decide that the person concerned is neither male nor female, so cannot marry anyone, the Supreme Court’s decision that marriage is an inalienable human right notwithstanding. Several jurisdictions around the world have adopted this view.
If I wasn’t already married – to another woman – I’d go to Texas, with my UK Birth Certificate saying “boy”, and my UK passport saying “female”, and apply for two marriage licences simultaneously, one to a man (I’m straight BTW), and one to another woman. If I was Transsexual, I could get my UK birth certificate changed, but as I’m Intersexed, I can’t.
5ARD and 17BHDD do not cause a natural sex change from looking female ot being male.
Zoe you keep coming out with this everywhere, in full knowledge it is false.
On top of that 5ARD and 17BHDD are nothing to do with this court case.
https://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/17/gaza.gender.id/
“Both Nadir and Ahmed were born with a rare birth defect called male pseudohermaphrodism.
Deficiency of the hormone 17-B-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17-B-HSD) during pregnancy left their male reproductive organs deformed and buried deep within their abdomens.
At birth, doctors identified Nadir and Ahmed as girls, because they appeared to have female genitalia.
As a result, they spent the first 16 years of their lives dressing and acting like girls. It was a role that grew increasingly difficult to play, as they hit puberty and their bodies began generating testosterone, resulting in facial hair and increasingly masculine features.
…
Nadir’s 21-year-old brother Midyam and his 32-year-old cousin Ameen Abd Hamed share the same condition of male pseudohermaphrodism. As adolescents, they too underwent the gender identity transformation process the family refers to as “the transfer.”
https://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html
During the early 1970s, Dr. Julianne Imperato, a Cornell endocrinologist, conducted an expedition to the Dominican Republic to investigate reports of an isolated village where children appearing to be girls turned into men at puberty. In the village, these children were known as ‘guevedoces’ (literally, penis at 12 years). Also known locally as machihembras (‘first women, then man’), these pseudohermaphrodites were documented serially in the following photographs published originally in the American Journal of Medicne (Am. J. Med. 62: 170-191, 1977):
And such situations have everything to do with the Law that’s being applied in this case. They show how broken the system is.
Thabnk you for confirming that you support Imperato-McGinley. That confirms my suspicions about your statements.
5ARD and 17BHDD are nothing to do with you. Your use of there health issues is disgraceful.
@ Zoe,
I almost forgot.
The reason you can not change your UK birth certificate is because you are still married to your wife, so can not legally change your birth certificate under UK law, until you divorce.