Texas attorney general declines to define "man" and "woman"

[MarieDelta]

EL PASO, Texas -- El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal on Monday announced that the Office of the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has formally declined to issue a legal opinion regarding the granting of marriage licenses to individuals who have undergone sex change operations.

On April 19, 2010 El Paso County Attorney's Office requested a legal opinion as to whether the County Clerk could legally issue a marriage license under a new Texas law when one of the parties is a female and the other was born a man but subsequently underwent sexual reassignment surgery and is now living as a woman.

The request was made after two Hudspeth County women - Sabrina Hill and Therese Bur requested, and were denied, a marriage license in El Paso in February of this year. As proof of identification, Hill presented a birth certificate identifying her as a male, a court order approving his name change from a male to female, and an Arizona driver's license with her new identity as a female.

Presented with conflicting documents, the El Paso County Clerk's Office requested guidance from the County Attorney's Office as to the eligibility of the applicants to obtain a marriage license.

Legal analysis revealed the existence of a legal gray area around this particular issue, raised by recent changes adopted by the Texas Legislature. Up until 2009, the identity and gender of a marriage license applicant was established through a birth certificate.

However, during the 81st Session, the Texas Legislature expanded the list of documents acceptable to establish proof of identity and age for purposes of obtaining a marriage license. Section 2.005(b) of the Texas Family Code lists the nineteen documents approved and, to make things more difficult, all are given equal legal weight. This is important for transgender individuals, as conflicting information on various personal documents may arise not from fraud, but because of sex reassignment surgery, and so transgender applicants should be able to self-identify their gender, as opposed to a court doing it for them.

In a letter dated on August 6, 2010, the Texas Attorney General's Office notified the El Paso County Attorney's Office that they will refrain from answering any questions or issuing an opinion, and in fact are closing the file on this request. The reason provided for this action is that issues included in the opinion request are the subject of pending litigation recently filed in the 245th District Court of Wharton County, In the Estate of Thomas Trevino Araguz III, Deceased, Cause No. 44575. The letter further states that, once that litigation is concluded, the El Paso County Attorney could submit another request if these questions remain unresolved.

El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal expressed her disappointment regarding the decision of the Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott.

"Unfortunately, the ambiguity in the law and confusion for the County clerk remains," Bernal concluded.

Hill and Bur did not want to wait to find out if the Texas Attorney General would get involved in their request in El Paso, so they married in San Antonio on May 3. Hill was born a hermaphrodite but is now legally a woman. However, her original birth certificate says she's a male. And because of a court ruling in Bexar County, that's all she needs to marry another woman.

Full article : http://www.kvia.com/news/24570713/detail.html

Watch the wheels spin now!

[Kiowa_Pacer]

Well, we here wish then both well.
Ki & Kit

[Long Duck Dong]

ok..... defining gender on paper is easy..... defining gender at a medical level is not that easy.......

for a start, a intersex person can in fact be both genders.... not one... or as some would say, the third gender.... the same issue exists for enunchs as they can identify as non gender specific.....

there is no way to correctly id a persons gender at birth as some intersex people will not reveal their base gender until puberty.... and that would mean that a incorrect gender at birth assumption, could have a person listed as a gender they are not.....

I am not refering to trans people that change their gender with surgery either, I am referring to natural born people that have a genetic aspect that makes it impossible to tell what gender they are......

at this point the texas attorney general has made the right call.....

[MarieDelta]

If you cant define "man" and "woman", then you can hardly define mariage as being between a "man" and a "woman" can you?

[darkeyes]

If you cant define "man" and "woman", then you can hardly define mariage as being between a "man" and a "woman" can you?

Apart from mostly bein money grabbin, greedy, unprincipled arseholes, its not surprisin this guy can't tell.. like most lawyers his knowledge of humanity leaves much to be desired... and they are trained to argue sugar is shite and black is white and vice versa dependin on circumstance, who pays 'em an how much.. so knowin that makes it doubly unsurprisin...all that shiftin' position mus make ther poor lickle brains addled.. used to have a lawyer boy friend wot seems a long time 'go.. even thought he wos a man.. had 2 disillusion the nasty gett in end..

Dus that mean Fran has no time for lawyers? Not entirely.. have met a few who are principled and decent human beins.. but hav also met far more who r just as I've described...

[transcendMental]

ok..... defining gender on paper is easy..... defining gender at a medical level is not that easy.......

for a start, a intersex person can in fact be both genders.... not one... or as some would say, the third gender.... the same issue exists for enunchs as they can identify as non gender specific.....

there is no way to correctly id a persons gender at birth as some intersex people will not reveal their base gender until puberty.... and that would mean that a incorrect gender at birth assumption, could have a person listed as a gender they are not.....

I am not refering to trans people that change their gender with surgery either, I am referring to natural born people that have a genetic aspect that makes it impossible to tell what gender they are......

at this point the texas attorney general has made the right call.....

Defining gender on paper is not easy, as evidenced by the refusal of the Texas attorney general to do so. Nobody is asking them for a medical definition, just a legal definition. If this was easy, he'd just do it, and then start using his definition to resolve the cases underway.

You seem to confuse sex and gender. Nobody tries to identify a person's gender at birth. They identify sex. Intersexed people can have traits of both sexes, and so can be miscategorized (and yes, often neither category fits). The confusion of sex issues with an intersexed person can also make it difficult for them to resolve their gender, or whether their gender matches their sex, but the primary issue with an intersexed person is with sex, not gender.

Transpeople don't change their gender with surgery. Surgery changes their sex to match their gender identity, and to match the gender they've been presenting as for at least a year.

Finally, I consider myself a natural born person, TYVM.

tm

[void()]

"Finally, I consider myself a natural born person, TYVM."


Void ambles by en route to get ready for work, pauses at statement, sniffs.

"Um, ayup ... all natural."

Void continues on his way now pondering the role of inverse quantum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum) effects on Schrödinger's cat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat), and it's applied practicality in entrapping lightning in a jar.

[Falke]

Wow, it sounds like Texas is about to learn about the rule of un-intended consequences.

[Long Duck Dong]

Defining gender on paper is not easy, as evidenced by the refusal of the Texas attorney general to do so. Nobody is asking them for a medical definition, just a legal definition. If this was easy, he'd just do it, and then start using his definition to resolve the cases underway.

You seem to confuse sex and gender. Nobody tries to identify a person's gender at birth. They identify sex. Intersexed people can have traits of both sexes, and so can be miscategorized (and yes, often neither category fits). The confusion of sex issues with an intersexed person can also make it difficult for them to resolve their gender, or whether their gender matches their sex, but the primary issue with an intersexed person is with sex, not gender.

Transpeople don't change their gender with surgery. Surgery changes their sex to match their gender identity, and to match the gender they've been presenting as for at least a year.

Finally, I consider myself a natural born person, TYVM.

tm

I am intersex... I think I know what intersex people deal with, think and feel..... and gender is our biggest issue, not sex

[transcendMental]

I am intersex... I think I know what intersex people deal with, think and feel..... and gender is our biggest issue, not sex

I said nothing about what intersexed people deal with, think and feel, aside from acknowledging that they do in fact deal with gender issues.

Still, my statement may have been misleading, and for that I apologize. I should have been more explicit and said that the primary issue in defining and recognizing intersexed people is their sex characteristics, not their gender.

tm

[MarieDelta]

What do we mean by "sex" and "gender"?
Sometimes it is hard to understand exactly what is meant by the term "gender", and how it differs from the closely related term "sex".

"Sex" refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women.

"Gender" refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.

To put it another way:

"Male" and "female" are sex categories, while "masculine" and "feminine" are gender categories.

http://www.who.int/gender/whatisgender/en/index.html