What would happen with marriage?

[ruavain]

I mean to bring this up to my therapist tomorrow, but I thought I might ask here, too.

With gay marriage banned in more states (Florida going so far as to also deny domestic and civil partnerships), I began to ponder (worry).

What happens, if anything, to pre-existing marriages for relationships with a transgendered person?
I'm still very early transition at this point.  I am, also, very much so in love, with a biological man.
For all extents and purposes, to the government, right now, I am female.
I haven't had anything changed yet, as far as documents go, that's still a bit far off for me.

Say, I went and married my partner Matt, tomorrow, as an "expected" man/woman marriage... but continued my transition, years later ending up with surgery and a legal name/gender change for all documents?

Does anyone have the right to, then... revoke, undo, deny, (whatever the appropriate word might be), our legal marriage, because suddenly it would be "gay marriage"?  Or is there, perhaps, some sort of loophole where it would be alright?  Or... what, exactly?

I'm sorry if this has been discussed before, I've never seen anything about it specifically.

[Kate]

Say, I went and married my partner Matt, tomorrow, as an "expected" man/woman marriage... but continued my transition, years later ending up with surgery and a legal name/gender change for all documents?

Welcome to my world!

There are no universal answers, only state by state, agency by agency rules and regulations. And the feds don't recognize same-sex marriages (DOMA), but then that's not *quite* the same thing since we were married as opposite sexes. So who knows? There's just no single law to fall back on. One agency may invalidate your marriage, and the next may be fine with it. But I don't think there's any universal "revoking" of the marriage, just a lurking potential refusal by any given agency to recognize it.

Or as I put it: it's valid unless it's not.

In the Real World, the only problem I've had so far was with my health insurance. They won't recognize my marriage since I changed my sex with them, but they do recognize us as "Domestic Partners" now, so nothing changed in the end.

Oh, and I think Social Security is likely to NOT pass on partial benefits to a surviving spouse, since they don't consider same-sex couples married.

Kate

[Jack Daniels]

hmm...It really is a state by state thing because I know that in Texas, when you change your physical gender and such, you re still considered your birth gender if someone were to challenge you on something on the marriage. Like this woman and man got married, but the woman was a pre-op transexual, born man, and because this, the husband won the divorce cause declarin the marriage void. And since that ruilin, a couple of women got married, and since one was borne a man, they got to get married, and Texas definietly is against gay marriage. 

But sorry, I dont really know how Florida does it, or what its ruilings are on the matter for that state.

[darius82501]

So I'm from Nebraska, does anyone know if I transition to a man, Could I marry a woman? I have really been considering this thought and hoped someone had some insight that I did not.

[James-Alen]

Marriage: Worst idea ever. I think we should just get rid of marriage all together then we wouldn't be bickering mindlessly over a piece of gov paper and a few money benefits.   

[iFindMeHere]

problems with that include hospital regulations and deceased partner benefits (wills, social security etc)

[Benjamin]

Even though I'm on T, and have changed my legal name, and am having top surgery soon, and am passing as a guy 100% of the time now, I'm going to keep my legal status as "female" because I fear what could happen to my 20 yr. marriage.  Remaining female on paper has "outed" me from time to time.  But, for now at least, it's a compromise I'm willing to put up with.   

[ruavain]

Thank you, everyone, that has offered any helpful information.
Hospital regulations is my main concern, really.

I found a .pdf file on the internet that dealt specifically with marriage laws.  I'll have to see if I can find a link to it.  It basically said that if you enter into a marriage and you are leagally able to do so (ie: one man, one woman), the marriage remains valid regardless of the gender changes one spouse goes through.  It did say there is a likelyhood that the state will challenge your marriage, and you will more than likely have to fight to prove the validity, but it won't automatically become nullified.  It did recomend getting financial and medical Power of Attorney forms, making Wills, and writing out a detailed relationship letter spelling out the exact nature of your relationship with your spouse, and to include the non-transitioning spouse's knowledge of the gender change.  This is to prevent claims of fraud later on.  My spouse and I are just beginning on this road and I'm terrified of the big bad wolf coming to try and blow our house down.  I hope this was helpful and I'll try and find it again and post the link.

Thank you for this information, if you could find the link that would be greatly appreciated.
When I did bring it up with my therapist today, she had very similar things to say, but also said that of all her patients and people she had known in these sorts of situations, nothing had ever gone wrong or happened to their marriage.

[ruavain]

http://www.transgenderlaw.org/resources/transmarriage.pdf

I found this to be very informative.

Indeed, thank you very much!