So, as some of us are aware, Texas is the sort of regressive hell pit that does not permit the transgendered to change their legal sex or gender when they transition. This however has come as a bit of a boon to two lesbian couples which include MTF transsexuals.
NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11 NEWS) – Judge Carl Ginsberg presided over two ceremonies its participants believe are the first, legal gay marriage in Texas.
Two couples said their “I-do’s” and all four people consider themselves female. But one member of each couple has had their gender changed surgically from male to female.
“On all of my information, it still says male,” said Ashely Boucher. “So, legally I’m still male in the state of Texas. My presentation would suggest otherwise. But my documentation says that I can marry Genevieve no questions asked.
“If you were born male and became female through being transgendered or having a gender reassignment surgery, they consider you to be biologically male,” said UTA political science professor Thomas Marshall.
The couples struggled to find clerks and judges who would cooperate with the marriages trying as many as 17 courts according to one of the participants, Genevieve Jonte.
“The lady at the clerk said, ‘But you two are women’,” said Jonte. ”And we said, “Well, here are our documents. Can you give us a license?’ And they didn’t know what to say. A lot of closing the blinds.
“We sat our child between us when we applied there and said, ‘We’re a normal couple just like anybody else’.”
Jonte said she has two children from a previous marriage.
The couples are clear, they want to send a message. “I hope that we can be an inspiration for someone like myself who thought a few years ago this wouldn’t be possible,” Jonte said.
“That’s all I want is to be equal,” said J.J. Larson who married her transgender partner, too.
“It will be interesting to see if the state tries to intervene in this at all or upper appeals courts in Texas try to reverse this decision,” Professor Marshall said. “Certainly that would put their cases elsewhere in a very weak position if they were trying to do that.
I am just gonna leave this here and have a laugh at the TX GOP while congratulating the lucky ladies on their marital bliss.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
I'm always glad to see legal loopholes being used for positive things like this. Good for them (and good luck too).
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
bilateralrope wrote:How long till we see an unconstitutional attempt to close this loophole ?
Well... there is an easy way to do it. Let transpeople change their birth certificate. They could also redefine marriage such that transpeople may not get married, but then what do they do with those couples who got married prior to transition?
It is a lovely little mess they have gotten themselves into.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
Alyrium Denryle wrote:It is a lovely little mess they have gotten themselves into.
No, it's not. You do not agree with their view, just comprehend it: a man who falsely believes himself to be a woman married a woman. As far as they're concerned, that's mission fucking accomplished.
Alyrium Denryle wrote:It is a lovely little mess they have gotten themselves into.
No, it's not. You do not agree with their view, just comprehend it: a man who falsely believes himself to be a woman married a woman. As far as they're concerned, that's mission fucking accomplished.
You... dont actually have a fucking clue, do you? The religious right hates transpeople more than they hate gay people. The legal tightrope transpeople have to walk in this state is insane, and that is completely intentional. They dont refuse to permit birth cert changes because they refuse to accept that a transwomen, for example, is a woman. That is part of it, but not even most of it. They do it to make things difficult. A woman who gets pulled over with a Male drivers license for example. It is a crime for them to represent themselves in any legal capacity as anything but their biological sex. If they get arrested (for any number of real offenses induced by rampant discrimination, or something an asshole police officer makes up), transwomen go to the mens prison (do I need to describe what happens to them there?). Need to use a public bathroom? Which one? They can risk getting the shit kicked out of them, or they can risk being arrested (and possibly put on the sex offenders registry).
So yeah. The TX GOP will respond. One way or the other, even if it is just a frustrated screaming fit in the state legislature. Excuse me while I go get the straw I use to drink their tears.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
Grumman wrote:a man who falsely believes himself to be a woman married a woman
I guess this is just you playing devil's advocate, because I cannot see how you've gone for three years in this forum without stumbling upon someone giving various biological and/or genetic reasons for most non-cis people's sexuality. I'm not breaking out the pitchfork, I'm just weirded.
Grumman wrote:a man who falsely believes himself to be a woman married a woman
I guess this is just you playing devil's advocate, because I cannot see how you've gone for three years in this forum without stumbling upon someone giving various biological and/or genetic reasons for most non-cis people's sexuality. I'm not breaking out the pitchfork, I'm just weirded.
I am going to assume he was channeling what he thinks the TX GOP thinks.
Granted, neither he nor the TX GOP, think on a regular basis.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
Oh that is priceless. The rule-bending hateful Neanderthals in the Texas legislature have finally met someone they could outwit, themselves. And there's no easy patch for this, they can either fix just a tiny part of their program of discrimination (to much whining about the doom of civilization, and an almost certain loss in the next primaries) or let TG people marry their own gender.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
Oh that is priceless. The rule-bending hateful Neanderthals in the Texas legislature have finally met someone they could outwit, themselves. And there's no easy patch for this, they can either fix just a tiny part of their program of discrimination (to much whining about the doom of civilization, and an almost certain loss in the next primaries) or let TG people marry their own gender.
I love it when catch-22 situations arise for people like this, especially when it's of their own doing. Either let people officially change their gender as part of the process, or permit same-sex marriage. I'll keep an eye on this, it should prove highly entertaining to watch them squirm.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
couldn't they just make it just make it so that it explicitly forbids transsexual people from marriage period, sure it probably against the constitution but when has that stopped these people.
I may be an idiot, but I'm a tolerated idiot
"I think you completely missed the point of sigs. They're supposed to be completely homegrown in the fertile hydroponics lab of your mind, dried in your closet, rolled, and smoked...
Oh wait, that's marijuana..."Einhander Sn0m4n
Lord Revan wrote:couldn't they just make it just make it so that it explicitly forbids transsexual people from marriage period, sure it probably against the constitution but when has that stopped these people.
How would that even work? They don't recognize gender transitioning, so there's no legal record. It's not like they're going to start demanding that people drop their pants when they apply for a marriage license, and it's not like they can define how male/female you have to look to be married.
Lord Revan wrote:couldn't they just make it just make it so that it explicitly forbids transsexual people from marriage period, sure it probably against the constitution but when has that stopped these people.
While that is a third option, aside from the unconstitutional point, it's a third option that makes them look even worse. Allowing official gender changes or same sex marriage compromises their ideology, but this third option would add more restrictions and make people even less sympathetic.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
The third option might also lead to pissed off Texans writing their representative because some clerk demanded proof that his fiancee was really a woman, because she looked kind of manly.
A trans-person marrying a person of the opposite gender BEFORE changing their birth certificate was a way to have a gay/lesbian marriage (as opposed to a civil union) in Germany for quite a while, since our supreme court ruled that having to get a divorce in order to change your birth certificate is unconstitutional.
(I said was because with civil unions becoming more and more equal to marriage, they might change that opinion and just flip it from marriage to civil union - thus furthering the way for equivalence between both).
Prohibiting a trans-person from marrying would be legally difficult for a lot of reasons - after all, if you don't get your birth certificate changed, what legal documentation is there showing that you are trans?
You can't base it on gender presentation, since that would open up a HUGE can of worms (oh, that person looks effeminate, thus no marriage to a woman allowed?)
You can't base it on therapist visits or hormone therapy - because you don't have to submit your medical history when getting married.
Well, they could say that if one person in a marriage turns out to be trans, then the marriage is annulled, or even make it a crime to get married despite being trans - but that would effectively make having a medical diagnosis a crime. I wish i could be certain they wouldn't go that far.
SoS:NBAGALE Force "Destiny and fate are for those too weak to forge their own futures. Where we are 'supposed' to be is irrelevent." - Sir Nitram
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"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." - Wilhelm Stekel
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If they try to make "is confirmed to be transgender" grounds for the state automatically annulling a marriage, they open themselves up to some hellacious Fourteenth Amendment lawsuits. Among other things, from spouses who actively decided not to leave their spouses when said spouses came out as transgender.
Such spouses do exist; there are wives who didn't look for a divorce when their husband told them "I'm actually a woman in a man's body." I haven't looked for confirmation of it but I am pretty sure there are husbands who didn't look for a divorce when their wife said "I'm a man in a woman's body," too.
Some of those people are Texans, and I don't think they'd appreciate having the state tell them to end their marriages after having gone through considerable distress trying to maintain them.
