From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Sun Jan 13 2002 - 20:19:32 MST
Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Spike Jones wrote:
>
> > This morning's SJ Merc has an article about a widow from
> > Kansas who is being disinherited by her stepson. The
> > stepson is challanging his father's marriage because the
> > stepmother was born a man....
> >
>
> The wonderful state of Texas had a similar case a while back. A
> transsexual woman who had had surgery decades before and gotten
> married wished to contest her husband's wrongful death due to
> medical malpractice. It was a pretty strong case and would have
> been open and shut against the hospital normally. But defense
> found out her history and said the case was invalid because the
> marriage was invalid because she "is a man".... After all, Texas can't
> expect
> to have it both ways. :)
>
> - samantha
I was delighted to see the Texas legislature having to face this
down. One imagine the cowboy lawyers sitting around
saying "Boys, we either hafta recognize the legitimacy of
transgender surgery or the legitimacy of homosexual marriage.
If we recognize neither, then we are saying the transgender
has not the human right to marry, implying that the transgender
is not human. The brain makes the human, so we would be
saying that the brain resides in that organ that was removed in
transgender surgery."
I am further delighted to see these issues dealt with at the
state level, for not every state legislature will decide the
same way. Some would then decide to acknowledge
homosexual marriage. Some states would decide to
recognize both the legitimacy of transgender surgery
and homosexual marriage.
Of those states that decided acknowledge transgender
marriage only and not homosexual marriage, some will get
hopelessly bogged down in the details. For instance, at
what stage of gender transformation does the person become
the target gender? Whenever they say? Does a doctor need
to declare the transformation more than halfway done? Can
it be *any* doctor, including one who is him/herself
transgender? Or what about a case like my cousin, born
ambiguously gender raised male, who married an ambiguous
gender raised female? And what if a transgender male to
female wishes to marry a transgender female to male? Would
they not be a legitimate hetero marriage either way?
It will bring me much joy and laughter to read the body of law
thus derived by some of those stodgy conservative southern
states trying to grapple with these issues. Perhaps most
states simply say eventually: marry whomever you want,
with our unconditional blessing.
spike
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