When you’re born, you’re declared male or female on the basis of what’s underneath your diaper. What happens if you change your mind later on?
If a person undergoes a sex change where they now have the approximate secondary sexual characteristics and some of the plumbing of the opposite sex and they declare themselves to be in fact of the opposite sex, does the law have any recognization of this fact? If they were born-male and are now surgical-female and want to, as a woman, marry a man, can they do that, or would it be treated as a same-sex marriage and not be legalizeable?
If there is a legal change, at what point does it take place? What would a person be legally if they:
get a sex change and live as the new sex
get a sex change but still say they’re of the original sex
live as the opposite sex without surgey?
If a man becomes a woman, is s/he still draftable? If a woman becomes a man, is s/he now draftable? Okay, probably not because they have to (so far as I know) have regular hormonal tweaking, but for this instance assume that that’s not an issue.
Let’s complicate the issue even further: Just the other day I read about a person who has “I (Intersex)” on her* passport, and is fighting to get the same designation on her* driver’s license.
*She has androgen insensitivity syndrome, and so physically looks like a woman but is genetically a man.
I have a feeling there are no easy answers, and none forthcoming in the near future.
There is a famous woman here in Korea who was born a man and had the operation. I think she’s a singer by profession but like most celebrities (called ‘talents’ here in Korea) she appears on all kinds of TV shows doing nothing that seems to require any real talent. Anyway, a few weeks ago the government finally agreed to legally change her sex from male to female. She’s rich and famous so she might have some strings to pull but I imagine that now anybody with a sex change operation can get their legal status changed.
I don’t know the legal answer, but I’ve noticed (mostly from documentaries like ‘Southen Comfort’) that transgendered often married transgendered of the opposite sex- a former-male-now-female marrying a former-female-now-male. If this is because they can’t marry someone of their former sex, or because transgendered understand each other better, or because no normal person wants to marry a transexual I don’t know.
This issue just came up at work today. I work in benefits, and a health insurance particpant of ours who is currently married underwent a sex change operation. Of course, he never thought to check the impact it would have on his health insurance before he has the operation. This is the first such situation we’ve had, so it threw us for a loop. All of us non-lawyers had no idea what to do, so we sent the issue to legal. Hopefully, they’ll get us an answer, and when they do, I’ll pass the gist of it along here.
Texas, IIRC, has ruled that one cannot change one’s sex. Wisconsin has ruled the other way. Missouri, according to (slanted) reports of a probate case, has refused to accept an amended Wisconsin birth certificate as proof of change of sex.
Apparently we’re headed for a situation where one can change one’s legal sex by the expedient of crossing a state line!
It also varies by country. While in the USA it can be changed in some states and not in others, I believe in the UK it can’t be changed at all.
As for marriage - there have been instances of “normal people” (whatever that means :rolleyes:) marrying the transgendered without realizing they’re transgendered. Apparently in some cases the transformation is that good (I believe these cases involved male-to-female, which is easier to do a good job). Of course, if the non-transgendered spouse finds out later then the marriage can be anulled since there was deception involved. Which further complicates things - should a transgendered person tell they folks they’re dating they’re transgendered, and at what point should that conversation occur?
