N.M. lawmakers table marriage ban; judge rejects transgender marriage

[davidinalameda]

http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?ID=15171&sd=02/16/05

A New Mexico bill aimed at defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman has been tabled by the house consumer and public affairs committee. Tuesday's vote effectively killed the legislation, sponsored by Republican representative Gloria Vaughn of Alamogordo. The issue is still alive in the legislature. A measure sponsored by Republican senator Bill Sharer of Farmington has yet to be heard in committee. His bill would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

In related news, Lea County probate judge Darrell Powell had to break the news to a Hobbs, N.M., couple who showed up at his office Valentine's Day with a marriage license, ready to tie the knot. After asking everyone but the couple to leave his office, he told them he couldn't do it. The reason: One of them looked like a woman, considered herself a woman, and had been taking female hormones for years but had not completed a sex-change procedure. Under state law, the 37-year-old was still considered a man.

[Stealther]

1. Actually, according to the law, the judge was right to do that, IMHO

As far as I know, every state that allows one to move from one legal gender designation to the other also requires the reassignment surgery to be completed before it's considered 'official'.

Even then, you have to go through the paperwork -- new birth-certificate, new DL, SSN update, etc.

The tragedy is some states, like Texas, won't let you update the birth-certificate -- and so there are _many_ transgendered folk who end up in legal limbo. For the MtF, it can literally be a situation where you're not allowed to marry another woman because physically one is also female, and not allowed to marry a man either because one remains legally male.

The irony? I _could_have_ married my current same-sex partner before, legally and completely; now, I can't. Well, except for the fact she's a lesbian and wouldn't have wanted anything to do with me in that prior incarnation. ;)

-Stealther