Never Argue With the Judge
Far be it from me to argue with a judge. And in truth, I never have. But there was a time in the mid 1990s when the trans community was learning how to work out ways to fight its way to legitimacy. Among some of the more active legal activists was an attorney from Texas named Phyllis Frye. Phyllis established the International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy, which is self explanatory. Ms. Frye became a prominent personality in the trans community. She had married her wife prior to transitioning, and they remained married after her transition.
At about that time the issue of same sex marriage began to be discussed out loud. As it was discussed, it was of the type we now know — marriage between two parties of the same sex and gender. The concept was not being well received. And then Phyllis waded into the fray.
She proposed that the transgender community could serve as an example of what same-sex marriage might be like. Her thinking was that if a man and woman get married, they are a hetero couple; but if the husband transitions to female, it would then be a valid and legal same sex marriage. Phyllis set forth her idea as a way of integrating the trans community in a few community publications.
I read the ideas she set forth at length and saw what I thought was a flaw, and feared that there could be danger in it. I could envision a situation where, instead of considering the transitioned husband as female, she would be regarded as something else: either/neither. Unfortunately, this scenario denies the self-identity of the trans partner to the couple.
As it was, I had called it right. A client of mine who transitioned while married had been subpoenaed to Michigan to participate in her own divorce. Guardians of her incapacitated wife decided she needed to be divorced. When it came time to recite the reason for seeking divorce, the transition was outta the bag. My client and I participated by speaker phone in my office in Philly.
And so when the judge in her mind deliberated all she’d heard she granted the divorce. And, as a the parting shot, the judge exclaimed “well it wasn’t much of a marriage anyway.”
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Category: Transgender Opinion
About the Author (Author Profile)
Kristine Holt hails originally from Northwest Pennsylvania, where her career as a social worker was suddenly ended in 1992 when she was fired for transitioning on the job. Seeking greener pastures, she relocated to Philadelphia to attend Temple Law school. A couple years after she landed in Philly, a lawsuit she had filed against her employer came due, and she ultimately settled for enough funds to take that last step in her transition. Thus proving that what goes around, comes around.Subscribe
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