Announcements and News

New gender identity must be realized

By Deb Price, The Detroit News

"Marriage is between one man and one woman."
      

The traditional excuse for refusing to open up American civil marriage to same-sex couples is now taking a fascinating twist:  The question now before courts is, "What is a man, and what is a woman?"
      

Litigation challenging the validity of marriages involving transsexuals is forcing judges to ponder the complexities of gender identity, anatomy and chromosomes.  What once seemed like a simple question,
many courts are quickly learning, is anything but.  And as courts start grasping the growing scientific understanding of the ambiguities of gender, society will find it increasingly difficult tofence certain couples out of marriage because of gender.
      

 The reason?  If courts deny the validity of a marriage of atranssexual - a person who has gone through hormonal and surgical change to become the other gender - they will have to create rigid gender definitions
that in fact would invalidate the marriages of some couples now considered to be composed of one "real" man and one "real" woman.
      

Some boys are born with micro or missing penises, for example, whileother babies are born with male and female genitalia.  Some adults appear to be male or female, but their chromosomes would say they are the opposite
gender or a mix of both.
      

And, as Texas is finding out, if a state only issues marriage licenses to couples according to how their genders were recorded at birth, the state will start allowing what to a reasonable person would appear to be
same-sex marriages:  A male-to-female transsexual, for example, would be allowed to marry a woman, as has happened in Texas with at least three couples.  (While most transsexuals don't identify as gay, some do.)
      

"Transsexual marriage cases are so powerful because they are right at the intersection of transphobia, homophobia and sexism," says Shannon Minter, an attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights who is a
female-to-male transsexual.  "Every court's worst stereotypes pop up to the forefront in these cases, and we have to confront them.  The single biggest challenge is educating the courts about transsexual people and about the
complexity of sex as a medical issue."
      

Here's a peek at the early wave of cases:
       .

 - Kansas:  In 1998, Marshall Gardiner, a wealthy Kansas businessman, married J'Noel, a business professor who he knew at the time of their marriage was a male-to-female transsexual.  When Marshall died without a
will the next year, his estranged son figured out J'Noel was a transsexual and challenged her right to inherit by claiming her marriage was illegal. The feud is before the Kansas Supreme Court.
       . 

 - Florida:  Michael and Linda Kantaras divorced after nine years of marriage.  In their bitter child-custody fight, Linda is arguing that the marriage was never valid, even though she knew Michael was a female-to-male
transsexual when they wed.  A trial judge will rule soon.
       .

 - Texas:  The marriage between Jonathan Littleton and his wife Christie - who Jonathan knew was a male-to-female transsexual when they wed - ended after seven years when the husband died of blood clots.  The
husband's doctor claimed that the marriage was invalid and that Christie, thus, had no right to sue for malpractice.  The Texas Court of Appeals sided with the doctor, concluding in 1999 that Christie could never stop being
male:  "There are some things we cannot will into being.  They just are."
      

Gender is far more complicated than most of us realize.  Courts should affirm the new gender identity of a transsexual for purposes of marriage.  And society should scorn people trying to avoid their legal
responsibilities through the detestable tactic of claiming that a marriage
they knowingly and happily entered was never real.
       .

Detroit News, February 25, 2002
615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI, 48226
(Fax: 313-222-6417 ) (E-Mail:  [email protected] )
( http://detnews.com/ )

TRANSSEXUAL CUSTODY BATTLE

KANTARAS vs. KANTARAS