The Legal Issues Of Transsexual Marriage

[Guest Kaitlyn88]

Hi everyone! It's been awhile since I've been on here, but the last time I told you that I got engaged to another girl. It's still going great but there are some problems...

Here is the situation as I see it now....I was born in New Hampshire. I am still pre-op, I am getting surgery ASAP as soon as I have the money and can set up an appointment. I can't change my sex on my birth certificate until I get SRS and go to court with proof. It is basically impossible to get a job in my state of VA because I am not allowed to have female on my license, since I am pre-op and and have male on my birth certificate. Without a job, it is nearly impossible to ever afford the surgery to get it changed.

The other half is the whole gay marriage dilemma and what is considered gay when a pre-op transsexual is involved. I want to get married to another woman, in our eyes and the people around us it is a lesbian relationship. This may be too much information but to get that point across, we do not use the "male" parts I have down...there. We both can't wait for surgery. She is willing to wait, and I don't have any option but to. In all other aspects in anyone's eyes we are just a normal lesbian couple.

I am a firm believer that everyone has the right to be married, have that recognized nationwide and have all the legal rights and benefits associated with that. Being transsexual, we have objections whoever we marry and and many cases even if we do get married, no matter who to it could be brought to court. I didn't choose being transsexual, and it's hard enough being one without this too. It is nearly impossible to find someone in this world who will love you despite your flaws, such as you are unable to get a job, they will receive discrimination for being with you, you can't have sex and now you can't even get married when you do find that special someone.

Well I would love nothing more than to have a gay marriage with her. Unfortunately my birth certificate says male. So I am forced to have a straight one and be the "husband" on the marriage license even though if anything I'm the more stereotypically feminine one and nobody is the "husband" in the relationship. If they somehow allowed me a gay marriage, it wouldn't be recognized by my state or the federal government making it useless anyways.

Our plan is to go to New Hampshire to get married, since that is where my birth certificate was issued. They will have to give us a marriage, or else recognize that my birth certificate is wrong and should state female. If they do not allow us to be married, we are willing to take it as far as we can. It seems like a win win situation...either they pass a law accepting pre-op transsexuals in the state as female, or they allow gay marriage with all the rights of a straight marriage to some people, which would be a first. If the second happened and a state was allowing some gay couples to get married with the rights of a straight marriage I could see that becoming the first step to allowing it for all gay couples. Either way, it will be beneficial to transsexuals in or born in the state of NH at the very least. The only bad outcome I could see would be if they passed a law saying pre-ops couldn't get married to anyone period. I don't see them doing that in one of the most gay friendly states though, and even if so I don't see that holding up in higher courts because that is obviously extremely discriminatory in nature.

I really would like to just have a nice quiet wedding, we don't even need a ceremony. If it came down to that I would take it that far though. I am tired of being discriminated by being called a male legally, but not even having the legal status of a male in practice anyways. It's either one or the other, ideally anyone should be able to get married if it's out of love. I'm tired of not being able to do things because of other things. Most other developed countries in the World offer SRS financial assistance or even fully pay for it so they don't have to deal with issues like this. Even countries that the US looks down upon such as Cuba and Iran. Health insurance doesn't cover this very real, medically and socially necessary procedure. Under current laws, I can't get my ID changed until SRS that I can't get until I get money, that I can't get until I get a job, that I can't get until I get my IDs changed to female. Nobody should be forever stuck in poverty because they can't get medical assistance, or be discriminated in housing, employment, and even marriage. By forcing the wrong gender on IDs, they are opening you up for that.

I know many of you do have jobs, it is possible but extremely hard. In some areas it may be impossible. If you can't keep your job from before transition, and can't have your IDs with the correct sex, you are out of luck in most cases. Even then the odds are low to have a job that pays well enough to support yourself while saving up for surgery. Especially for those who are transitioning in their teens or early twenties, who have no college education and little if any job experience. In the current job market, it's hard enough for the average person to find a job some times even with higher education.

I know there are many married transsexual people out there, but all the ones I have ever heard of got married intending for it to be a heterosexual marriage at the time of marriage. There are many who got married before transition, but originally the intent was to be straight, or at least try to act and appear to be. There are also some who got married to someone the opposite sex of their gender identity after transitioning. I haven't heard of anyone in my situation, pre-op but intending to get married in a same sex relationship with someone of the same gender identity. If you have heard of another case, let me know, I would be very interested in how that turned out.

If you have any comments or suggestions let me know. Also let me know how you would feel if I did end up taking it all they way. I would be doing this for the gay and transgender community as a whole, not just to fight for my particular rights. Somebody has to do it, or things will never change.

One day people will see past gender and we won't have to go through all this to live our lives...nobody wants their wedding day to become a national controversy.

Despite all this, I'm very happy to have transitioned, and I am ecstatic about my future for the first time in my life. You can't let all the discrimination and misunderstanding keep you from trying to be happy and living your life.

Kate

[Guest Kaitlyn88]

I know I accidentally put an extra a in legal for the title....I hate typos.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Elizabeth K
I will fix it for you

[Guest sarah f]

Kate I hope it doesn't come down to you fighting this in court. Hopefully they will just marry you and be done with it. If it does come down to court then I wish you the best of luck.

[Guest Kaitlyn88]

Thank you.

[Guest Donna Jean]

.

Honey.....

I agree, the whole thing is blatantly unfair...

But, not likely to change overnight...

Let me tell you about my situation...

I live in Ohio...one of only three states where the birth certificate cannot be changed, so, I am doomed to have "male" on it for the rest of my life...

So, even after full transition, surgery and all, I'm still male in the eyes of the law..

SUX!

Now, in other places in the world, if a man and woman are married and the man transitions, the marriage is annulled..because it would be a "same sex" marriage...

Here that doesn't happen...it's never been contested...

I wish you luck, Honey!

Huggs

Donna Jean

[Guest Kaitlyn88]

I don't think they can keep the policy of not fixing a birth certificate, they would basically be only allowing gay marriage in some cases. It seems like they would change that as soon as there was a publicized court case where gay marriage was allowed. People want to discriminate against being trans and gay but in cases like marriage they have to choose one or the other.

[Guest kelise]

Sweety, I've been in the same boat as you, except now I'm post-op. I am also lesbian, and am dating a lesbian and we would like to get married. We all like to think that our case will send the office into and uproar and we'll make headlines and prove to the world that the whole gay marriage ban is hooey. Thing is, trans people get married all the time. Some tell little white lies, some don't have to. Some times those little white lies come back to bite them, sometimes they don't For those of us who consider ourselves gay (interested in our own true sex) it's actually better to try in more conservative states. I don't know about Virginia, but here in Florida there is a case law that states that even though the state recognises post-op transwomen as women, in the case of marriage, the state only looks at birth sex. Sucks for all the straight transfolk out there, who have to resort to the little white lie and only show their driver's lisence in the courthouse, and hope it doesn't come back to bite them; but cool for queerosexuals like me who only have to keep our original birth certificates male (nobody looks at them anyway) to show that, yes, I was born male, so you have to let me marry my girlfriend. If you're planning on marrying your GF pre-op, you're in even better shape. Finally let that M on your license do you some good and get married. I would like to have a gay marriage too, but like you said, once you leave the state you get it in, it's worth no more than the paper it's written on. We're gonna do the next best thing. I'm going on the marriage license as the wife, and she's going on as the "husband", because I'm taking her last name and the wife portion is the only part with the name change stuff on it. Whatever. It's all a bunch of BS. If you can, I'd wait a little bit because once Prop 8 gets to the U.S. Supreme Court there's a chance we might finally win gay marriage in all 50 states anyway.