While the push to legalized gay marriage in the United States is an ongoing battle, LGTB couples are starting to encounter a second barrier in the quest for marriage equality: divorce. California made waves this month when it passed legislation allowing gay couples to divorce. Laws dictating the terms of transgender marriage and divorce are even more undeveloped.
This week, Texas judge Lori Hockett awarded the right to a legal marital divorce to transgender man James Scott, in the process declaring a previous ruling regarding transgender marriage unconstitutional. Scott James had undergone all of the physical and legal procedures (including receiving a new passport and birth certificate) to verify his gender as a man, before marryinghis wife. When the couple ended their marriage, James’ wife petitioned courts to declare their marriage void because James had been born a female, and gay marriage is prohibited in Texas.
The petition, which would have stripped James of his rights as a married individual, was based on a 1999 Texas court case; in the Littleton vs Prange case, a transgeder spouse was prohibited from inheriting his dead spouse’s estate when his marriage was declared invalid due to the fact that his marriage was declared not to be a genuinely heterosexual marriage. This week, Judge Hockett declared the Littleton vs Prange marriage unconstitutional, and awarded James the right to a divorce.
The divorce case of Eric James is yet another example of America’s increased legislation to protect transgender citizens. Do these legal protections mean that Americans as a whole have accepted transgender members of society? Probably not. However, America’s stance on issuing legal protections to transsexuals is actually superior to that of Thailand, a country famous for its cultural tolerance of transgender and LGTB individuals. Legally, however, transgender men and women in Thailand get a short shift. Transgender individuals are not allowed to marry, because gay marriage is not allowed in Thailand and transgender individuals are not permitted to change their genders on legal documents. Rules against legal, formal gender changes mean that transsexual women in Thailand may still be required to report for military recruitment.
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