I freely admit this is a fairly idiotic question. I only ask it because the subject came up at lunch today, thanks to talk radio and fond memories of an excellent restaurant in Dallas run by a M-F transsexual. (Monica’s Aca y Ala–highly recommended.)
Here’s the question. Say you used to be male, XY chromosomes and everything, but you’ve gone out and gotten sex reassignment surgery. John Thomas is irreparably gone, forever replaced by Lady Jane.
Then you find Jesus. And not just the Jesus Lite that a lot of people believe in. I mean the hard core, Pat Robertson/Jack Chick version of Jesus. The Bible’s the literal world of God, homosexuality is an abomination, etc.
Now there are these two great great, single people at your church, George and Barbara. They’re both remarkably open-minded about your past and present genders, now that you’ve accepted the hard-core Jesus as your lord and savior.
If you can convince the church elders that you were born with the wrong set of genetalia and had surgery to correct the birth defect…just like a club foot or hare lip…
then MAYBE they wil allow the Transgender to marry the current opposite sex…
…that is, if they believe a, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Transcendental, PERFECT God is indeed capable of (or at least allowing) the creation of a soul plugged into the wrong body.
Sorry, enola, but there is no way that you are going to be able to convince hard core fundies that you were born the wrong sex. Not going to happen.
I actually know of a case like this happening, however, in San Diego. A man become a woman, then became a “devout” (as opposed to the Jesus-lite that you mentioned). I don’t know how the situation was resolved, but I would think that the church would support him/her but that they would prefer she be celibate. I don’t know this for certain, just thinking along the lines of, “You aren’t able to reproduce and we can’t support your being married either way, so you’re stuck.” But again, I don’t know. I’ll have to see if I can find out how the situation was resolved.
I am suprised they would even accept a transgendered person. They would probably go by chromosones, since chromosones are the most uncompromising thing about the subject.
Don’t be so sure. Pat Robertson (that fundie stalwart) has declared that transsexualism is not inherently sinful, but merely an unusual and difficult test that God chooses to give some of his people. I don’t know if he ever said anything about sex after reassignment, but it’s not wrong to seek reassignment.
Of course, under some fundie regimes it would be wrong for a postoperative transsexual to have sex, because sex is only for procreation and obviously a post-op cannot reproduce; therefore, there shall be no sex. Infertility is also grounds to refuse marriage in these people’s minds (since allowing an infertile person to marry might lead to nonprocreative sex), so you can be denied permission to marry notwithstanding the issue of your gender, originally or currently.
BTW, in Texas a transsexual cannot marry anyone, legally; no marriage license clerk is going to issue a license for what appears to be a same-sex marriage, and at least one Texas judge has annuled a marriage after-the-fact upon the discovery (by the court, not by the parties, who knew in advance) that the bride was born male. His judgement was upheld on appeal. Once a male, always a male, in Texas. (The same is true in several other states, and apparently also in England, although in the latter case that may violate EU human rights law.)
KellyM, I had no idea that case existed. And out of a court in my home state to boot! Thanks for the link. It is now a published case: Littleton v. Prange, 9 S.W.3d 223 (Tex. App.–San Antonio 1999, pet. denied).
The legal implications for marriage are interesting too, of course, and I have no objection if anyone wants to throw them into the discussion. I was primarily interested in the religious implications, though. And on that subject, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit that Pat Robertson thought the desire to change one’s sex was a test from God. I would, however, be very surprised if he thought it was okay to actually go through with the sex reassignment.
But that’s a bit off topic. I’m curious about where the fundamentalists would stand on marriage (and, by implication, sex) after the gender reassignment is a fait accompli. For everyone who’s speculated so far, thanks!
I think the key in that quote is that “He forgives you.” That implies to me that Rev. Robertson thinks the surgery was a sin, but like all sin, can be forgiven by Christ. That’s pretty much the situation I was imagining in the OP. (Although do note that in that link, most of Robertson’s answer to the transsexual’s question was devoted to the possibility of putting John Thomas back in his original place.)
Now if only Robertson had answered my question. Sure, Jesus forgives you. But who does he want you to marry?
What Kelly may not be aware of is that Texas recently became the first state to give its legal sanction to a same-sex (or at least same-gender) marriage in consequence of that decision – a lesbian couple, one of whom had been born physically male and transgendered and had had surgery to correct the problem, so to speak. Which upset some people, but precedent for the goose…
I seem to remember someone quoting a Bible passage at me at some time or other about it being impossible for a man to enter heaven sans his wanker. Am I dreaming?
I guess I don’t have to explain that I’m not a Bible scholar…
A marriage consummated after reassignment, or before? I am aware of several “same-sex” marriages where the partners married before reassignment and did not subsequently divorce. According to my therapist, this happens in about 3% of transsexuals who are married at the time they begin their transition (that is, 97% of marriages do not survive the reassignment of one partner).
Hey Polycarp, you got a cite for that by any chance? Pots and kettles and geese and ganders are some of my favorite legal arguments.
However, I’d be surprised if the validity of that marriage were upheld. Littleton said gender was determined by several factors, and not all of them would be in favor of the M-F transsexual who was married to a F with all the original equipment. Although I agree with KellyM that getting married before the sex change would present way fewer legal problems, since there’s no “void from the beginning” consideration and no subsequent divorce to dissolve what was at least in the beginning a legal marriage.
I have heard the same story about the Male-to-female transexual legally marrying her girlfriend told here in Alabama (the person this happened to is a well known figure on campus, but it is still FOAF). Story went that they could legally marry because in this state your legal sex stays always and forever whatever you were born as. Furthermore, the clerk at the courthouse couldn’t tell that the woman was not still a man, so went ahead and gave them a marrige license. I am pretty confident this really happened–my husband knew the woman involved, and read an article in the local paper about the marrige. However, he is not sure whether or not the wedding took place: at the time of the article the license had been issued, not excersised.
Keep in mind, MandaJO, that just getting a license and having a ceremony is not enough to make a wedding legally binding. As the marriage hasn’t been challenged yet in court, I’d say it’s still an open question whether the state would recognize its existence.
I think you got the wrong verses. I think jane_says is talking about Deueteronomy 23:1 - “No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD.” However, jane_says heard incorrectly about this meaning that such a person can’t get into heaven; what it means is that such a person is not allowed to marry a Jewish woman.
Also, you seem to be misunderstanding the nature of “priesthood” in Judaism. While the verse in Leviticus says that someone with those physical blemishes may not perform the priestly functions in the temple (e.g., sacrificing the animals), he still has priestly status, meaning that he is allowed to eat of the sacrifices and of the set-aside portions of grain, etc. that only priests may eat, and that he is not allowed to marry a divorcee or defile himself by touching dead bodies. Priestly status is hereditary; it’s only the actual performance of sacrificial services that requires that the priest lack blemishes.
Indeed, the marriage in Littleton was not set aside until after it had dissolved of its natural course by the death of one of the parties. It was, in fact, that death that brought the unusual circumstances of the marriage to the attention of the court.
Ah ha! Now we’re getting somewhere, albeit in the Jewish faith rather than the Christian one of the OP. Good enough for me.
So the M-F transsexual in my original hypothetical can’t marry Barbara. Can she marry George? KellyM: You’re spot-on, except that as far as the Littleton court was concerned, the marriage was void from its inception, so the husband’s death didn’t dissolve anything that had legal status in the first place.
According to Jewish law, one is forbidden to have transsexual surgery. However, if one goes ahead and does so anyway, it doesn’t change his/her gender for halachic purposes. Thus, the former George cannot marry a male.
So between the two rules posted by cmkeller and zev_steinhardt, it looks like Jewish law would prevent a M-F transsexual from marrying anyone of either gender. I suppose there’s a little bit of squiggle room under cmkeller’s rule for a F-M transgendered person to marry a male, since a F-M hasn’t had any testicles cut off or crushed or whatnot. But I think that takes care of the OP under the Jewish faith.
Still, I really want to know what hardcore Christians think about this conundrum. Sheesh, where’s FriendofGod when you really need him? He’s usually pretty good at explaining the fundamentalist Christian take on things.
