Do I get married as a "lesbian"? What the heck do I do?

[androidnick]

I'm in a bit of a pickle. I live in Florida where my trans status makes a marriage impossible. As I'm in a relationship with a woman, and cannot procreate, our marriage would be invalid. (I wonder if they realize just how ridiculous it seems)

I hate that I have to wait for same-sex marriage to become legal here. Which honestly seems like it won't be too long considering how things are happening everywhere. Anyway, the dilemma is, what will this mean for trans people? And I have another issue. I was born in Puerto Rico. Which means they will not amend my birth certificate. It will always say "female". But my driver's license says male. It's just like I don't even know what that would mean for me. Do I get married with her as a same-sex couple?

Or could providing a passport rather than a birth certificate work? And does the same-sex marriage thing then invalidate the law about a trans marriage not being valid because of the procreation? So many issues that the media doesn't bother discussing. It is so crazy.

[Kreuzfidel]

I don't know what to tell you, mate.  The US system is buggy - I was born there, but live in Australia and here they will accept a passport as an official document for foreign-born people looking to apply for a marriage licence.  So basically, to legally marry my wife here in Australia - I will need to get my US passport gender marker changed - which is a far cry easier than getting the BC changed.

What documentation is required there to get married?  Do you have to present a BC or can you present any form of ID to get the marriage licence?

[campenella]

Me and you are in the same boat where you can change everything, but your birth certificate which is unfortunate. If you are looking for the legal benefits you could possibly wait and see what your state would offer to civil unioning and not care what the paperwork says about your birth sex. To all outward appearances it would be a hetero marriage and it wouldn't say anywhere that you are in a civil union really. Even if you were many cis and straight people choose civil unions or common law marriages. If you don't want to wait around for your state, you could always just have the ceremony and forget about the gov't. It depends on your outlook, but unless you tell someone they wouldn't know about your marriage.

[LittleEmily24]

I'm in Florida too ^_^. My psychologist told me to pretty much travel to Cali and validate my marriage (im already married, but to be safe she recommended i travel to cali and validate my marriage so that florida can SUCK IT) and then just go about my life.

You're on the other side of the spectrum though, I married a woman as a male before transitioning. But honestly, I think with your gender marker changed it should be more than enough, florida is all about paperwork and documentation, they don't care about semantics. If your ID says M, then you are M. Civil union workers OR Public Notaries don't ask for your birth certificate as far as I'm concerned.

When I got married and went to validate it in the courthouse, they only asked me for my Social Security Number and my ID, as well as my wife's (her birth certificate is somewhere in Chile, so I am certain they didnt ask us for a birth certificate). So i guess, give it a shot and tie the knot you wont know until you find out and if they reject you ~ do what I mentioned above; travel to cali, validate your marriage, come back to Florida and tell Tallahassee to SUCK IT lol (figuratively speaking of course).

[aleon515]

I'm in a bit of a pickle. I live in Florida where my trans status makes a marriage impossible. As I'm in a relationship with a woman, and cannot procreate, our marriage would be invalid. (I wonder if they realize just how ridiculous it seems)

I hate that I have to wait for same-sex marriage to become legal here. Which honestly seems like it won't be too long considering how things are happening everywhere. Anyway, the dilemma is, what will this mean for trans people? And I have another issue. I was born in Puerto Rico. Which means they will not amend my birth certificate. It will always say "female". But my driver's license says male. It's just like I don't even know what that would mean for me. Do I get married with her as a same-sex couple?

Or could providing a passport rather than a birth certificate work? And does the same-sex marriage thing then invalidate the law about a trans marriage not being valid because of the procreation? So many issues that the media doesn't bother discussing. It is so crazy.

So let me get this straight (haha), if you couldn't have children for some other reason (let's say over 45, infertile, had some kind of illness that made you infertile, took medication that was not compatible with having children, etc etc), you couldn't get married? (Actually this concept got brought up in the Supreme Court case on gay marriage with Ruth Bader Ginsberg schooling a couple male judges on what happens when couples get over 50. Hilarious.)

You can get your passport and social security amended (though the SS card doesn't show a gender on it), not sure how tricky they are about this.

http://www.stateofflorida.com/Portal/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=30

--Jay

[HoneyStrums]

When will people understand a marrige about love, not babies .

Its a symble saying I devote my life to this person. Not a baby making qualification.
I Mean realy sooner or later marrige will disapier altogether. And people will just celebrate these things by themself.

Guess what. If the government tries to stop me getting married it wont change a thing. Ill enter a none marage legal contract with my partener and follow the traditions with our families. BUT no body on this planet can stop me wearing that dress and saying I DO. A true marrige is in the heart and the soul, And no government cann chage that or prevent it.

EDIT---

Sorry Its sore subject for me and my guess is its the same for a lot of us. I Just needee to vent.

[Polo]

I ran a quick check for my previous home county of Pinellas (St. Pete/Clearwater) and found this:
   
Marriage License FAQs

Requirements to obtain marriage license in the State of Florida:

Both parties must be present when applying for a marriage license, sign the application form and take an oath to the truthfulness of the information provided.

Both parties must provide proof of the following:

Age: both parties must be at least 18 years of age.
Identification: in the form of a driver's license, state ID, military ID or passport.
U.S. citizens must provide their Social Security Number. Non-citizens may provide a Social Security Number or an Alien Registration Number issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Also, a passport is an acceptable form of identification for non-citizens.

No mention of a birth certificate to be found

[sneakersjay]

There is really language in FL marriage law that prohibits marrying if you cannot procreate?  Lots of cis-people are infertile; and heck with the geriatric population in FL I doubt many older people are procreating!

You might not need your BC.  They didn't want mine when I was getting my new *verified* drivers license.  They preferred the passport over BC.

Or, you could travel to a state where there is no procreation requirement.

[androidnick]

I'm in Florida too ^_^. My psychologist told me to pretty much travel to Cali and validate my marriage (im already married, but to be safe she recommended i travel to cali and validate my marriage so that florida can SUCK IT) and then just go about my life.

You're on the other side of the spectrum though, I married a woman as a male before transitioning. But honestly, I think with your gender marker changed it should be more than enough, florida is all about paperwork and documentation, they don't care about semantics. If your ID says M, then you are M. Civil union workers OR Public Notaries don't ask for your birth certificate as far as I'm concerned.

When I got married and went to validate it in the courthouse, they only asked me for my Social Security Number and my ID, as well as my wife's (her birth certificate is somewhere in Chile, so I am certain they didnt ask us for a birth certificate). So i guess, give it a shot and tie the knot you wont know until you find out and if they reject you ~ do what I mentioned above; travel to cali, validate your marriage, come back to Florida and tell Tallahassee to SUCK IT lol (figuratively speaking of course).

Seriously? Lol I guess I hadn't thought about it that way...I could just go to the clerk of courts office and ask for a marriage license huh? Damn that is crazy. This is awesome. I doubt they would deny me since my license does say male. And if I did get married in another state like California I guess they can't invalidate it? It is all so confusing. But since I don't have the money to go to another state I think I'll just try it in Florida.

[LittleEmily24]

You could also try Idaho if anything since it's closer xD just became legal there.

[Bimmer Guy]

The question is if one has to have their birth certificate changed in order to be "legally male".  You need to know the answer to this question.  If you are entering a legal marriage and are not legally male, you are probably breaking a federal law.  Also, your social security number will have you as female, if you are not legally male.

It doesn't matter if you go to another state and get a civil union as a female.  When you come back to FL, it won't be recognized.  It will be a useless document.

[Bimmer Guy]

I'm in a bit of a pickle. I live in Florida where my trans status makes a marriage impossible. As I'm in a relationship with a woman, and cannot procreate, our marriage would be invalid. (I wonder if they realize just how ridiculous it seems)

I hate that I have to wait for same-sex marriage to become legal here. Which honestly seems like it won't be too long considering how things are happening everywhere. Anyway, the dilemma is, what will this mean for trans people? And I have another issue. I was born in Puerto Rico. Which means they will not amend my birth certificate. It will always say "female". But my driver's license says male. It's just like I don't even know what that would mean for me. Do I get married with her as a same-sex couple?

Or could providing a passport rather than a birth certificate work? And does the same-sex marriage thing then invalidate the law about a trans marriage not being valid because of the procreation? So many issues that the media doesn't bother discussing. It is so crazy.

A "trans marriage" (as you are calling it), is not valid because they define marriage as between a male and a female.  If you are not legally male, then you cannot marry.  One is either male or female in our government system, there is no "trans".

[Hex]

Good news is at least the government recognizes your marriage (if say you marry as a same sex couple) in another state and come back to FL. FL won't recognize it but the government will while doing your taxes, which gets kind of tricky come tax time (my husband is an accountant reason I can safely say this)

As for the translaw, I don't think I've ever heard of a state squaring in on trans that much and using such an umbrella term to deny them legal marriage. As far as I know it, if you are legally(court ordered) a male and you are marring a female, it's legal.

Same goes for say married couples who were f/m and then one changed their gender marker during the marriage and it either became f/f or m/m. It would still be legal because you entered the marriage "contract" as a f/m couple and the state and government only see you as f/m couple. It's weird I know >> but they go by the time the contract was made not how it is kept up. (I had to look into that one personally before I considered legally changing my gender in whether or not it would null and void my marriage with my husband.)

[sneakersjay]

AFAIK you don't need your BC to be legally male.  You are legally male when your Driver's License says you are. So whatever hoops you need to jump through in your state to get that, and SS, you should be good.  Many trans people never change their BC.

[Alexthecat]

In Ohio you can't even change the gender on a BC.

[aleon515]

The question is if one has to have their birth certificate changed in order to be "legally male".  You need to know the answer to this question.  If you are entering a legal marriage and are not legally male, you are probably breaking a federal law.  Also, your social security number will have you as female, if you are not legally male.

It doesn't matter if you go to another state and get a civil union as a female.  When you come back to FL, it won't be recognized.  It will be a useless document.

This is partially right, imo.
You can change the gender on your social security card. It isn't very hard. Actually your gender does not show up on the card but is recorded by SS. They could theoretically check this. The SS card and BC are in no way linked, as the BC is a state document and the SS card is a US document.

You can definitely legally marry in some states (NM allows trans marriages). (Actually the state of NM may be unique because gender was never part of the definition of marriage here.)  BTW, if they don't ask for your BC, you aren't "legally" female. The legal gender is based on the document (see below). I think in NM they ask for the SS card, so your gender is "legally" the gender recorded by SS.

But I agree if you married in another state and came back to FL it would not be legal. Not sure that is going to stand up to a Supreme Court test though. I think this concept falls tbh. For instance, there are states which allow marriages between second cousins and some which do not. But another state will still *recognize* this marriage for legal purposes. My guess is this falls in the next 5 years.

My opinion: Go have a nice vacation somewhere, if you can afford it. Right now it won't mean anything in FL, but if it would make you happy, I'm all for it. Go somewhere that will recognize you as a hetereo couple, as there is some chance that FL. won't figure out you're trans.   If you want to come here, I know a couple people who'd do the ceremony. LOL  (But obviously it's the license that matters.)


Note:, what gender you *legally* are, is kind of curious. As for myself, I am legally male to drive; my SS is male and my BC is female. A lot of things depend on the driver's license so I suppose I am legally male in a situation that uses the driver's license as my legal ID.



--Jay

[Jess42]

OK, I see marriage as an institution. Pretty much the way I see an insane assylum. Really and seriously, you don't need the government from state to federal telling you who you can and cannot limit your love and comitment too. Really and seriously all you need is to vow to each other that you commit your life to each other and if you want it in ceremonious way, by all means have a ceremony. Evrything else from power of attorny to who you leave everything to can be handled by a lawyer. To me a piece of paper is just that a piece of paper with a couple of signitures on it. You can have the same contract drawn up in a lawyers offfice.

BTW I know gay and lesbian couples that have been together and love each other more strongly than people that get state sanctioned marriages. So in my opinion ture love comes from the heart not a marriage license in which you pay money to the state to obtain.

[wheat thins are delicious]

For a lot of people being in a legal marriage is about more than just their love for each other but the benefits that come with such a thing.     

[aleon515]

For a lot of people being in a legal marriage is about more than just their love for each other but the benefits that come with such a thing.     

There are more than a 1000 benefits of marriage, though maybe not all will benefit any married couple.

--Jay

[androidnick]

For a lot of people being in a legal marriage is about more than just their love for each other but the benefits that come with such a thing.     

If it was just about love I'd be happy with a ceremony. But I am looking for the tax benefits more than anything. Obviously we are already committed. But I want to be able to put her under my insurance, etc