Anatomy of a Controversy

[Shana A]

Anatomy of a Controversy

by Brandi Grissom
May 14, 2010

http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2010/may/14/some-gay-marriages-legal-texas/

The two women are hardly the typical Texas married couple, yet their union has been blessed by the courts. That's because Hill is a transgender female: She was born with both male and female genitalia, and her father ordered surgery to make her a male. Three decades later, she would surgically reverse his decision. Today, Hill's driver's license and a judge's order say she's a woman — but her birth certificate and now her marriage license say she's a man. The county clerk in San Antonio gave Hill and Bur a license to wed, putting the couple at the center of a decade-long fight over whether unions like theirs are legal in a state that has overwhelmingly opposed same-sex marriage in polls and at the ballot box.