Obviously this question would only apply to states that ban gay marriage. I suddenly thought of this because I realized sex change has a lot longer history than legalized gay marriage. What happened to the marriages of those people who had sex changes? I remember that at least some of them divorced, but I’m sure some stayed together. Did the states consider them the changed sex in everything else but marriage, and allowed the marriage to be grandfathered in to legality?
Not all states accept that sex-change surgery changes sex. That is to say, you can have (say) male-to-female sex change surgery, but from a legal, official and administrative point of view you are man who has had plastic surgery in order to resemble a woman. This has no implications at all for the (legal status of) your marriage. This was, I think, pretty much the universal legal position when sex-change surgery became a reality in about the 1960s.
Many states, but not all, have now legislated to give some legal recognition to the consequences of sex-change surgery, so that someone who has undergone male-to-female surgery will be treated as a woman for at least some purposes – e.g. will be issued with a passport showing sex as female. But they don’t necessarily have a general rule that say that such a person is, in all respects, female. I don’t know, but I doubt if any state has provided that sex-change surgery automatically dissolves a marriage, though, if only because the dissolution of marriage has effects which need to be addressed in specific cases. That’s why we need divorce courts.
Um I think we either have or had a member of the dope that this addressed, she was a male who married in traditional manner and then had the sex change to a woman.
Declan
Oh, I can answer this, for Michigan anyway.
When I was in college, my multiculturalism professor brought in several homosexual, transgendered, and non-defining gendered individuals to present to us.
One was a woman who used to be a man. She honestly still looked like a man dressing like a lady, but she was post-op and had indeed had a sex change.
She said that her wife knew about the whole situation and supported her getting the surgery. And, she went on to explain that they were still legally married, something he/she looked into before getting the surgery. He/She, at the time, was quite concerned about insurance and other things and discovered that they would still be married. It was the one loophole to Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban, she said.
This was in October 2001, by the way.
Under the British legislation adopted a few years ago, which does allow for trans people to be legally recognised as their “new” gender, those who were married must annul their marriage and they can then re-register as civil partners.
Kansas will not legally recognize a transsexual as their new sex, so if a couple marries and one of them undergoes SRS, then their marriage is still valid.
If it’s the one I was thinking of, I mentioned this in another thread and was told it was a hoax. I couldn’t find the thread where this was revealed.
I’ve heard at least one trans individual say that when the issue of which sex to officially treat them as comes up the guiding principle seems to be ‘which sex will be most legally disadvantageous’. A general, and consistant, rule that all government agencies would have to follow seems like it’d be a great idea.
Some individuals are born as XY males but their bodies don’t recognize testosterone, so they don’t develop as males. I recall seeing an interview with one such person who didn’t realize that she wasn’t truly female until after she had married and tried to have children and the doctors discovered she had internal testicles rather than a uterus and ovaries. The film also mentioned that in England at the time she would have been considered female, but in Scotland she would be considered male. (It may have been the other way around.)
I don’t know about marriage status, but I can tell you that in Thailand, gender is listed on your national ID card. And if you have a sex change, you still cannot change the gender on your ID card. You’re stuck with whatever gender you were physically born with.
Besides the fraud, we have had at least two MTF Dopers and one FTM.
Mahaloth
Why the “he/she” ?
The person you’re referring to is a woman. To not use feminine pronouns can be seen as insulting. I’m sure that was not you’re intent, but that’s how many people would view it.
The Lurker Above has it right. The issue varies from state to state and country to country and is generally whatever would be most inconvenient.
Goodness, cut Mahaloth some slack. If we quote what they said:
(emphasis added)
…they used the proper pronoun 7 times, and he/she twice.
Good thing I can type with my foot in my mouth.
This is called androgen insensitivity syndrome by the way. The Y chromosome causes testicles to develop. However, due to a mutation in one of the non-sex chromosomes (there’s a name for non-sex chromosomes which escapes me), the testosterone doesn’t effect the development of the other sex organs, which resemble a female. The other thing is that with no estrogen, no uterus or fallopian tubes develop.
That’s actually complete androgen insensitivity. There’s also incomplete androgen insensitivity which can lead to a female with a large clitoris, a male with a small penis, or hermaphroditism. But with complete insensitivity, even a doctor has to be looking in the right place to notice it.
Did You go to Ferris?
I betcha I know her.The couple I am thinking of still live as a married couple but do not have sexual relations.The origianl woman took her wedding vows seriously and supported her husband through the change.
Right. I used he/she when referring to the deliberation time the man had when he considered becoming a woman. I felt that since he/she was appropriate there because while technically a man, he felt he was a woman.
For the rest of my post, I sad “she”.
Please don’t look for things to be offended by. It only leads to frustration.
I was interested by this, so I looked it up.
What ruadh says is basically correct, but in the context of this thread it is important to note that sex-change surgery is irrelevant.
The UK legislation (the Gender Recognition Act 2004) allows somebody to apply to the “Gender Recognition Panel” for legal gender reassignment.
To succeed, they will need to show that they have gender dysphoria, that they have lived in the desired gender for at least two years, and that they intend to live in that gender until death. (A separate set of requirements apply to people who have already had a gender reassignment under the law of another country, but I ignore those).
They need to supply medical reports. They don’t have to have had surgical treatment of any kind for their dysphoria but, if they have had it, the medical reports must give details.
If, at the time of the application, they are married, then if they satisfy all these conditions they get an “interim certificate”, which has no legal significance or effect, except that it entitles them to apply to court within the next six months for an annulment of marriage. The court, on annulling the marriage, can make all the orders regarding division of property, custody of minor children, maintenance, etc. that they could in any other annulment proceedings.
If the marriage is annulled, the “interim certificate” is converted into a full one, and the applicant can then go about getting a new birth certificate, passport, etc.
Consequently, as a matter of UK law a sex-change operation changes neither gender nor marital status. There are procedures for having a change of gender and marital status recognised, but they do not involve sex-change surgery.
There have been at least two other posters who transitioned while they were married. I know that in one case, it led to the dissolution of her marriage. Not sure about the other, but I think she’s still married.
The situation envisaged in the OP – a couple who remain married after one of them has undergone gender reassignment, and has had the new gender officially recognised - very nearly exists in Australia.
Australia does not generally recognise same-sex marriages.
The practice in Australia is not to alter a birth certificate to reflect gender reassignment if the person concerned is married. Thus a person who has undergone gender reassignment needs to get a divorce or a nullity decree in order to get a revised birth certificate.
Some years ago the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade adopted a policy of not issuing passports showing a gender different to that appearing on the birth certificate.
A male-to-female transgendered person applied for a passport showing her gender as female, and produced medical evidence of her female gender. She had married a woman prior to her gender reassignment, and that marriage was subsisting. She did not wish to apply for a divorce, and argued that she was not entitled to a divorce, since her relationship had not irretrievably broken down. Consequently she did not have a birth certificate showing her gender as female.
The Department declined to issue her with a passport showing her as female, and she appealed the refusal. The appeal was successful, with the tribunal holding that it was unreasonable of the Department to demand a consistent birth certificate, given that her identity and her gender were adequately established by other evidence (and in fact were not disputed by the Department).
The result is that she is now a woman who holds a passport identifying her as female, and whose marriage to another woman is registered. I assume, but I don’t know, that the validity of her marriage is accepted and recognised by tax, social security and other authorities.
However her birth certificate still shows her as male. Furthermore her marriage certificate will show her as the “husband” which, given Australian law on marriage, implicitly identifies her as male.
So it’s not quite full-blooded legal recognition of same-sex marriage. But it’s close.
A marriage is a legal binding contract. You do not wave it away. you have to go to court to end it. Of course a sex change is a pretty strong argument to end it.