Thursday 6 May 2010

A Legal Question in Texas

Request for an Opinion on Marriage License Requirements

I'm not holding my breath expecting a reply from the right-wing Attorney-General on this one.

Background at the El Paso Times:
Can a person born a man but who is now a woman marry another woman?

Sabrina J. Hill and her longtime girlfriend, Therese "Tee" Bur, were legally married Monday in San Antonio after being unable to get a marriage license in El Paso.

"It's a weight lifted," Hill said Tuesday in a telephone interview. "Now the federal government and state government recognize our love."

The marriage of two women from rural Hudspeth County has put a spotlight on Texas laws and has El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal asking the state attorney general for clarification.

Hill, 60, was born with both male and female organs and is listed as a man in her birth certificate. But her current identification has her as a woman.

The Texas Constitution defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

According to documents, Hill was born Virgil Eugene Hill Jr. in New York state.

After a medical procedure as a infant, Hill grew up as boy and as a man served in the U.S. Army. She said she always felt something was different. "I knew what I looked like and what I was, was not the same," Hill said.

Around the age of 28, a medical exam found that Hill had ovaries. She eventually had a sex-change surgery, and she legally became Sabrina Jeanne Hill in 1991.
Biological Reality collides with law based on religion (suitably disguised as "Natural Law").

16 comments:

M Italiano said...

Unfortuntely there will be some "infamous ones" who will doubt that this person is intersexed and who will continue to hype about so-called "intersex-wannabes" who are "transsexuals in denial."

Zoe Brain said...

*Chuckle*

No doubt. But does that matter? Facts are.

Psychologically speaking, I *am* trans after all. I fit the "Standard transsexual narrative" really well. OK, I'm also IS. It was the fact that a biological-woman-who-looked-male has *exactly* the same psychology as a standard trans woman that convinced me of a neurological causation.

And although I identify as female, biologically speaking, "more female than male" is more accurate than "female" anyway. I wish it were not so, but as I said, Facts Are. Whether you'd like them to be or not, and whether you believe them or not. Reality doesn't care.

I'm comfortable in my body at last. OK, it would be nice to look better, but the thought of implants and other surgeries doesn't appeal. It would be mere vanity, I don't *need* them.

I've been lucky enough not to stand out even without them - something I still marvel about, as objectively speaking, I'm really plain in many ways. Yet somehow, I have to tell people of my past, they have no idea if I don't.

And mostly I don't tell because they have no need to know of my medical history, any more than I do theirs.

I'm in... a comfortable place. Who would have imagined? I still get a happy thrill when people don't believe I'm over 40 too.

All the best M, and thanks so much for your emotional support, but also for the science. I think I can speak for many IS people there.

Anonymous said...

Texas is different each county makes its own laws and each judge can and does make his own rules.
Have a good well paid lawyer and you can make anything happen there.
Mike

Anonymous said...

"Facts are"?

So, an unsubstantiated claim made to an El Paso paper passes muster scientific proof now?

If I had a dollar for every middle-aged tranny who swore to Jesus that "the doctor discovered ovaries", I'd retire on my new yacht...

Sign me,

Ms. Urrian

Anonymous said...

Do atheistic transsexuals swear to Jesus? Do atheistic transsexuals even sware? Indeed if this is going to be taken seriously in Texas, the individual will have science to back their claim....well not like junk "science" that is poorly or non-referenced on the sites of some who like to "invalidate" the lives and "experience" of some intersexed individuals

Anonymous said...

Atheist transexuals in Texas? What the hell are you going on about?

And I thought this blog did not allow anonymous commenters...


Ms. Urrian

Sabrina Jeanne Hill said...

OK folks, this is Sabrina from Texas. The "Evidence" is sonograms showing the "spare parts", (optional equipment?), and several years of mammograms that show FULLY FUNCTIONAL Female breasts. When my hormones were switched back in 1982 while I was in Germany, I needed to use a breast pump for six months. A man can damn near drown his internal organs in female hormones, but he will NOT develop working milk glands and ducts. Brie

Zoe Brain said...

Hi Brie!

Congratulations! Glad you made the law's idiocies work for you. May the two of you have every happiness, and may any furschlugginer potrzebie interfering busybodies who might try to reverse things get their comeuppance.

Hope your Endo's good - my own HRT regime is still a matter of experiment. We're not even sure I had PMDS, indications are suggestive, but all I have for certain is a scar from bikini line to breastbone. Anything there would have been scraps of tissue anyway, nothing functional. So it doesn't matter.

BioMales can get working milk ducts BTW. Lactation is fairly common under HRT.

Sabrina Jeanne Hill said...

Your last sentence was news to me. THAT would tend to lend credence to the notion that FEMALE is the "Default state" for humans, much to the shock of any Bible thumping chauvinist red necks. I was aware of the Clitoris and Labia continuing to develop into a Penis and scrotum in the presence of intermediate male hormones during the gestation of the fetus, but not the presence of milk glands capable of being switched on in the presence of Female hormones.
As an aside, while NOT a Rocket Scientist, I do design aircraft.
Brie

Anonymous said...

As they say on the internet, "pics or it didn't happen."


Ms. Urrian

Sabrina Jeanne Hill said...

WELL, Anonymous, seeing as YOU have no "Picks" or even a NAME, for that matter, as far a I am concerned, YOU didn't happen. Brie

Zoe Brain said...

In my experience, to a serious doubter, pix, videos, transcripts of medical records and eyewitness testimony still aren't enough.

May I suggest you read "Sexing the body" to see the kind of things that can happen. Proving what did happen in any particular case involves violations of medical privacy. I didn't mind my own details being revealed as the results of various tests came in, but I don't see why others should have to do the same.

Why it should be so important that we convince the unconvincable, they don't say. Facts are or are not, whether there is belief or not. Our problems are in dealing with the inevitable and continuing legal and medical issues caused by these facts.

Sabrina Jeanne Hill said...

You are so right Zoe, if I DID load photos then I would be accused of Photoshopping and cut and pasting them.
I like your entire Blog Library, and the stories that you choose to cover, so you have a trans Pacific reader. Brie

Zoe Brain said...

Hi Brie! I know what you mean. Absolutely the funniest exchange with one of the uber-sceptics that's online is at the Independant.

I got some really nice compliments too, not that she meant to be complimentary.

Then there's those who thought I had to be the product of CGI on the "Hungry Beast" video.

Sabrina Jeanne Hill said...

Zoe,
Thanks for the link to the Independant article. On the subject of photo avitars, how would I load one of me flying one of my aircraft up as my avitar? Brie

Zoe Brain said...

Go to Blogger Dashboard - there should be an Edit Photo option on the left. Select and follow instructions.