WTF Pam?Clearly the issue is about his birth certificate. In his state, a letter of reassignment surgery is needed to change the birth certificate. He has such a letter, but has not filed to have birth cert. changed.
Someone at the clerk’s office equates reassignment surgery to “penis” and made an ignorant statement. Even the local Fox news folks managed to get it straightened out.
Your headline and the little you wrote confuse and sensationalize the situation. I’m horrified that Fox is covering a trans issue better than Pam Spaulding is.
WTF Pam?! I know you know better. What’s going on?

excuse me,The Michigan Messenger and Fox (which led with that headline) are the ones sensationalizing a story that is simply about a birth certificate.

I think the MM did a good jobof putting it into context, certainly more so than Fox’s online edition, save the legal analyst.

They always do, but you?I’m wondering not about them, but about your headline and minimal text that don’t do the usual job (I have come to expect from you) of dispelling the bullshit and presenting the actual facts of the story. I wasn’t being snarky, Pam. I am genuinely asking what’s up? are you ok? You don’t seem quite your self.

Doesn’t matterIt doesn’t matter whether he’s had surgery or not or had his birth certificate changed or not, there will still be questions about whether or more specifically where his marriage is valid. And the answer will vary from state to state. As far as I know, the courts in Michigan have never dealt with the question. But other courts have been all over the map, up to and including that any changes are irrelevant.
As far as I have seen actual caselaw, only California and New Jersey have absolutely accepted transition as valid for the purpose of marriage. New York, Florida, Texas, and Kansas recognize only birth gender. (Yeah, NY, kind of a shocker, but the case is from the 70s and is ripe for an overturn–you can get legally married in an equal marriage state and have NY state recognize it to protect yourself.) In most states, including Michigan as far as I know, you just don’t know what the courts might do. Any disgruntled relative could retroactively challenge the marriage and have it declared void and take away your rights to inheritance, common property, and so on.
The bottom line is that transgender people should assume their marriages will not be upheld by the courts as valid and protect themselves accordingly with contracts and so on.  

Yet another instance…in which trans folks are denied rights unless we answer invasive questions about our genitals in the “right” way. And even for those who do have the surgeries required by law, there is no guarantee that birth certificates, marriages, etc. won’t be challenged.  For some of us, though, we’ll never get to that point: maybe we don’t want every possible surgery, can’t get time off of work to recover, or can’t even imagine being able to afford what are generally considered “elective” procedures.
My surgical status is, by default, no one’s business but my own.  The fact that any part of my life and my rights is tied to this makes me angrier every time it comes up.

So’s OhioOhio also refuses to allow us the ability to change our birth certificates, yet (for now) we can change our state ID without having surgery.
This is good for us who’re lesbian or gay, because this means we’re able to have legal “same-sex” marriage, because in the eyes of the state, I’m still a male, and a FtM would still be seen as female.
I’ve been saying this for years, now… but it’s marriages by transfolk and intersexed people which is the key to killing off DOMA, because none of the laws codify what “male”and “female” are, and we just happen to throw those tidy little categories all in a tizzy!

We’ve got to get the “sex” out of the right to marry.Two unrelated people of any description should be able to get married. How many decades will it take for this to come to pass?
Imagine if “regular” people had to prove to complete strangers what their genitals looked like in order to get a marriage license.

it would be like going to the airport. They don’t seem to mind.

It’s worse than that.In Kansas, Florida, and parts of Texas, it’s Chromosomes, not birth certificates or genitalia, that determines sex.

PATIENTS: A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis.–J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan;93(1):182-9

In those states, this person would be legally male for the purposes of marriage. HOWEVER… as they would not have a male birth certificate, but a female one, they can’t marry a woman either. There are quite a few states where transsexual people can’t marry anyone of either sex.

Since the case at bar is apparently one of first impression in Ohio, it is this court’s opinion that the legislature should change the statutes, if it is to be the public policy of the state of Ohio to issue marriage licenses to postoperative transsexuals

They’re not specifically called out to be allowed to be married (though neither are blacks, jews, etc) , so are forbidden.
In a number of states, birth certificates have been found to be necessary, but not sufficient, proof of sex. In one – I think it’s Pennsylvania IIRC, even though the state changes the Birth Certificate after surgery, it doesn’t recognise its own birth certificate for the purposes of marriage. But it does allow the person to be in a same-sex marriage (according to the birth certificate if it’s been corrected).
In New Hampshire, although same-sex marriages are legal, it’s not certain that marriages involving transsexuals or intersexed people are. In Pennsylvania, Intersexed people, being regarded as neither male nor female, appear to be forbidden to marry. In neither case is the law clear.
IS and TS people should NOT assume that if a state allows SSM that it allows them to marry.
This whole thing is a big a mess as was the case when mixed-race marriages were forbidden. In some states, one had to be 1/32 black to be black. In others “one drop of blood” was enough. So depending on the state, someone could be white, and forbidden to marry a black, or black, and forbidden to marry a white.

“Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Texas, is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Texas, and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”

In no case since 1976 has a challenged marriage involving a trans person been upheld as valid. We’ve regressed a long way since 1955.

One problemThe new Michigan Attorney General who takes office in the next 48 has has said she’ll forbid changes to birth certificates, to hell with what the law says.

This is truly a F’ing Mess

“Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Texas, is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Texas, and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”

One thing I believe is that when anyone who knows nothing or close to it about Trans people, jump right to Banning trans people from getting married all together  But the facts are that laws about transgender folks affect so few people that noone gives a damn.  But still support banning any kind of relationship.
I have a birth certificate that says female as do my passport and drivers license.  I am a MtF transsexual who is married now to a wonderful man.  I know none of my relatives would ever challenge who I am, but still have that fear that some religious busy-body with a hateful/hurtful agenda would do what they could to destroy our happiness.
I just have to ask, “Who are we hurting?”
NOT A SINGLE PERSON!
So why make it so complicated for so few that just what to be who they are and happy?

Two problems with that…

This is good for us who’re lesbian or gay, because this means we’re able to have legal “same-sex” marriage, because in the eyes of the state, I’m still a male, and a FtM would still be seen as female.

For many transsexual people, that would run counter to the whole thrust of their transition. For many of us that compromise of personal integrity, especially after the arduous journey of transition it took to get there, to contradict our hard-won gender status in such a way is seen as unethical or dishonest. One’s self-respect is too high a price to pay. Also, it betrays the cause of marriage equality by taking advantage of a loophole that isn’t available to a cis gay or lesbian couple. For many of us, such a betrayal also destroys our self-respect, after having struggled in the trenches for marriage equality alongside cis gays & lesbians.

but it’s marriages by transfolk and intersexed people which is the key to killing off DOMA

Honestly, I just don’t see how it would soften the hearts of the religious right supporters of DOMA toward marriage equality. Rather, it would only harden their hearts further toward trans people.

This is so wrong!!!I am married to a trans man LEGALLY in the state of Indiana. So basicaly if you dont have a penis your not a man what if something bad happened to them and it had to be removed what then? Are they unable to get married or identify as a man? Some poeple would say the uturas and overies is what makes a women with the production of estrogyn which stops once it has been removed. Are they no longer a women? I run a web page on myspace for the partners and family of FTM people and answer so many questions requarding this issue.