Victory! New York City Adopts Policy Ensuring Transgender People Equal Access to

[Shana A]

Victory! New York City Adopts Policy Ensuring Transgender People Equal Access to Marriage Licenses

http://transgenderlegal.org/headline_show.php?id=328

We are happy to announce that the city of New York has adopted a new policy designed to ensure that transgender people have equal access to marriage licenses.  The policy was adopted as part of an agreement to resolve threatened legal action involving a transgender couple.  The couple wishes to remain private and we refer to them as Jane and John.

Jane and John are both transgender.  They are an opposite-sex couple who have been in a relationship for over a decade.  In Dec. 2009, they attempted to marry in the Bronx.  They fulfilled all of the requirements for receiving a marriage license in New York City and presented their government-issued photo identification – the only identification required by the City Clerk's office.  Rather than issuing the marriage license, the City Clerk refused and instead demanded that Jane and John produce their birth certificates before they could be married – something not required of other marriage license applicants.

[Shana A]

Transgender couple can marry after all, NYC says
They applied in 2009, but the city clerk refused them

NBCNewYork.com
updated 3/8/2011 6:16:46 PM ET 2011-03-08T23:16:46

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41977026/ns/us_news-life/

NEW YORK — A transgender couple refused a marriage license by New York's City Clerk in 2009 will finally be allowed to marry, and the agency promised new training to ensure other transgendered applicants are not turned away.

The transgender woman, who had been born as a male, and her opposite sex partner, who was born female, were denied a license to marry at the Bronx office of the City Clerk in December 2009.

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Transgender New Yorkers to Get Marriage Licenses
by Kilian Melloy
Tuesday Mar 8, 2011

http://www.edgeboston.com/news////117113/transgender_new_yorkers_to_get_marriage_licenses

Transgender New Yorkers will be able to apply for marriage licenses under a new city policy, according to a March 8 press release from the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund.

"The policy was adopted as part of an agreement to resolve threatened legal action involving a transgender couple," the release states. "The couple wishes to remain private and we refer to them as Jane and John.