When You’re Married and MTF, Are You In a Gay Marriage?
That, and other pertinent gay-trans-marriage questions arrive in Jennifer Finney Boylan’s essay from Maine that, while one-part touching is 10-parts excellent in pointing out the ridiculous nature of gender definitions and marriage laws. “For our part, Deirdre and I remain legally married, even though we’re both legally female. If we had divorced last month, before Governor Baldacci’s signature, I would have been allowed on the following day to marry a man only. There are states, however, that do not recognize sex changes. If I were to attempt to remarry in Ohio, for instance, I would be allowed to wed a woman only.” The possibilities get even more bizarre.
A 1999 ruling in San Antonio, in Littleton v. Prange, determined that marriage could be only between people with different chromosomes. The result, of course, was that lesbian couples in that jurisdiction were then allowed to wed as long as one member of the couple had a Y chromosome, which is the case with both transgendered male-to-females and people born with conditions like androgen insensitivity syndrome. This ruling made Texas, paradoxically, one of the first states in which gay marriage was legal.
A lawyer for the transgendered plaintiff in the Littleton case noted the absurdity of the country’s gender laws as they pertain to marriage: “Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Tex., and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”
This article needs some clarifications. First, sexual orientations within the trans population are just as diverse as in the population at-large. It ought to be made clear that the article is talking exclusively about transwomen married to another woman, presumably when they were married prior to transition. Also, this article concerns only whether these marriages are same-sex in the legal sense only. Spiritually these would most certainly be considered to be same-sex!
Also, I’d change “MTF” to “transwoman” as it’s much more respectful language.
@Emily: Most transpeople consider “MTF” and “FTM” just as respectful as “transwoman/man.” And I believe Queerty is just talking about the legal sense, not the personal-identity-sense. What they’re essentially highlighting is the ridiculousness of our marriage laws when they’re applied to people who change their legal gender. It gets even more complicated when you consider that one could be a male with the DMV and a female with Social Security — or any other of the many, many bureaus and offices that have gender on file!
Let’s not criticize Queerty when they finally get it right! :-)
No.
No matter who you are or what you are, when you enter into this kind of relationship you are entering into A MARRIAGE. Not gay or straight or what ever.
Isnt full equality what you guys are fighting for, even semantically?
Yea, your just married with mutilated genitals.
The government of Iran certainly seems to think so. Isn’t that why they are making all those people have sex change operations or face execution?
@strumpetwindsock:
Think NOT, I mean.