If Nikki Araguz loses, any Transfolk in Texas will be effectively de-transitioned. This is scary, this is not scare tactics, this is important, folks.
The very IDENTITY of Transfolk in Texas lies in the hands of a small-town Republican judge.
"If Nikki loses, you lose your legal status. It doesn’t matter what your doctor says. It doesn’t matter what your chromosomes say. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re intersexed. It doesn’t matter if your birth certificate says you’re female when you’re male-to-female. It doesn’t matter. What will matter is that a small town judge has said that you’re legally male if you’re male-to-female. And that if you’re female to male, well, you’re legally a woman for the rest of eternity. That’s what this case is about, and I don’t know that people really understand that. This case is huge. It affects the lives of thousands and thousands and thousands of people."
--Cristan Williams, Transgender Foundation of America, Houston
Comments
This is a bit like
Corbett v Corbett in the UK in 1970. Hopefully that couldn't happen here these days because the Gender Recognition Act has made it a statute.
Angharad
Angharad
*sighs*
This case won't end here - no matter the outcome.
But, sadly, there ARE people that believe like this and they are in positions to force this mistaken belief down others throats. Can I say things like this make me sad that I have relatives in Texas?
The US and it's checkerboard of rules about who is human and who is not (I exaggerate a little, but it feels like that to me.) There's no real difference between this, and the miscegenation laws that were so common in this country - even in the 20th century!
*sighs*
Anne
Reading around...
Nikki has PAIS, and had reconstructive surgery back in 2006. Until last year she worked at an LGBT magazine. That, plus various interviews and emails effectively blows a hole in the mother-in-law's case that her husband didn't know about her intersexed status before marriage.
Plus the case also threatens to reverse existing Texas law - apparently change of name/gender documentation is considered valid ID for applying for a marriage. Needless to say, the vast majority of commentators on the reportage (especially the Houston News) have been supportive of Nikki.
As if the case wasn't complicated enough, apparently the husband's ex-wife was engaged in a custody battle for her two children immediately before the husband's death; and Nikki herself was a little rebellious earlier in her life - so it's fairly likely all that old dirt will be raked up during the course of the case. On the other hand, the firm of lawyers Nikki has hired are experienced in TG issues, and her lawyer is TG herself.
Unfortunately, the case is so emotive that whatever the outcome, everything will probably remain in legal limbo as the losing side will undoubtedly appeal to a higher court. And let's not forget that it's not just adults that are being dragged through this case - it's undoubtedly affecting those two children as well.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Link
I may be unobservant, or suffering from worse eyestrain than I think right now, but I don't see any links posted above.
In case anyone is looking for the story, it's here: http://www.dallasvoice.com/nikki-araguz-loses-detransition-t...
The first comment on that link raises the possibility that the case itself is much more narrower in scope than some might think, that should Mrs. Araguz lose, it won't have further significance than the settlement of her husband's estate.
Well, let's hope that she either wins, or that the case is indeed as narrow in scope as that commenter suggests.