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“I respect trans women as women, but I do not believe they are female.”
“Females have a right to set a boundary and have it be respected.”
“…Females have a right to be free of Males if they so choose. Trans women are male.”
Today on May 22, 2012, I woke up here in my home state of California being only able to marry those who are legally female. When I go to bed this evening, I’ll only be able to legally marry males. That’s because this morning I went to the San Diego Courthouse under the rules created under 2011′s AB 433, I legally changed my sex — or as California refers to it, legally changed my gender — from male to female. So, who I’ll be able to marry changed from female to male as my legal gender changed from male to female. Remember — Prop 8 limited marriage in California to one man and one woman, and I’m no longer legally male as of today.
Documentation is the only thing that changed between when I woke up and when I go to bed today. And, of course, my legal change of gender isn’t recognized across many state lines — If I married someone in Texas, Kansas, Tennessee, or Florida, I would only be able to marry women because these states don’t recognize what happened today in that San Diego, California, courtroom. Again, because these states only recognize marriages between one man and one woman…well since these states still consider me male I’d only be allowed to marry females in those states.
For me, it’s the stupefying reality that I can now, because of today’s San Diego court ruling, jurisdiction shop acrros the nation to marry anyone in the U.S in a heterosexual marriage — with the one exception of another trans woman who’s also legally changed her sex. What gender a state recognizes me as makes a difference of whom I’m allowed to marry heterosexually.
I’m pretty much asexual and pretty much aromantic though. Marraige of any sort is pretty unlikely to me…my chances are actually pretty slim.
Still, marriage equality is the oddly first thing that came to mind to me on the day California legally went from recognizing me as male to recognizing me as female.
My other thought today is how my legal change of gender is this one: a year or so ago I’d have told you today would be an incredibly exhilarating day for me. Actually, it’s been a modestly gratifying day.
In the days ahead, I’ll explain why my legal change of sex/gender feels a bit bittersweet to me. The stories are bittersweet ones that entail cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and cyberharassment from some public and less-than-public people.
For example, one of the players in the cyber-nongood behaviors includes Cathy Brennan — the woman quoted at the beginning of this piece, and how she apparently acted according to that belief system espoused above by personally interjecting herself in my change of legal change of gender.
Again, that’s a story for another day.
So, in an anticipated toast lifted to me by me later this evening, let me just put forward a lower case toast cheer of “yay!” on the table. The world changed for me this morning at 10:03 AM PDT in a downtown San Diego Courtroom today — which is just pretty gosh darn important to me! — that’s at least worth a lowercase cheer.
I’ll be likely quietly celebrating hat lowercase cheer tonight with a Stone Brewing Company Ruination IPA beer in hand. (A lower case, but heartfelt, “yay!” too for beergeeks and local breweries too!)
~~~~~
Further reading:
* Part 2 of the series: The Bittersweet “Change Of Gender” Court Ruling: It Came With Cyberbulling
* Part 3 of the series: The Bittersweet “Change Of Gender” Court Ruling: It Came With Even More Cyberharassment
* What Genital Reconstruction Surgery And When
* Surgery Set For February
* Dates Are Set, So Full Speed Ahead
* Under The (Hopefully) Tiny Knife Tuesday
* Released From Weight Control Monitoring
* What Genital Reconstruction Surgery, And When
* My Primary Care Says I’m Recovering Well From My Orchi
* The Ginchy Letter I Received Via Snail Mail On Saturday
6 Comments
Ah! Well e-attacks are only to be expected when we put ourselves out here I guess.
And I hadn’t thought of the marriage problems cuz all my T patients who were MTF had female SOs.
I was thinking it would be bittersweet if your Coast Guard retirement had a gender disparity!
ALSO just the damnable fact that it is so important to go through this legal rigmarole when you are the same person!
I find myself wanting to see at least an ‘other or decline’ choice on any gender question nowadays.
WHATEVER: Congrats to you. As soon as we get near cold beer again I’ll hoist one for you Lady! My choice Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
OOPS! I mean my patients were FTM ‘s w female SO’s.
Well congrats on the change. But I’m not sure if feeding the megalomania of these transphobic psychopaths by quoting them the same way you quote MLK (albeit for a different reason) is a great idea. But then I don’t know the details of your personal encounter, so *shrug*
(And yeah, I would be interested to hear if she pulled a Germaine Greer on you, if that’s the kind of thing you’re talking about).
True. For me, it’s not clear cut on whether to share or not.
I want other trans people to know; however, what can happen to trans people when they share their personal stories online — the level of hate speech, and sometimes even hate action, one can experience in sharing one’s own story.
I still hold that it’s best when more of us are out of the closet because as we become known my more members of society we become more accepted in society — look at how lesbian, gay, and bisexual civil rights have progressed with more community visibility since the Stonewall Uprising.
But what’s good for the community isn’t necessarily good for the individual. It’s not only discrimination and hate from some in broader society we face when we’re out, but hate from some within our own population of transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people that we face in a struggle for ordinary equality.
It’s hard to move forward when we’re eating our own. Cathartically, and from a position of warning others what the costs of being out may include, I feel a need to talk that concept of eating our own within the context of extreme behaviors.
Fair enough. Personally I’m of the mindset of keeping these issues as cloistered as possible, because it’s my impression that these individuals don’t do much outside their own enclave of creepily-devout hatred except troll trans blogs from time to time. In other words, I don’t really see any real-world consequences of their shenanigans (yes, I’m aware of the “letter to the U.N.” fiasco, but I think the response was waaaaaaay overblown for what the potential impact was). But if you’re saying that there is something they did that had real-world consequences for you, then it’s definitely worth talking about as a warning to others.
Congratulations!! and thank you for your activism and positive visibility in the face of cruelty and viciousness