'Transgender' Widow Actually Intersex, Court Decision Ignores Nuance Of Sex, Gender, And Identity

By Zack Ford on Jun 2, 2011 at 12:18 pm

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/06/02/234421/transgender-widow-actually-intersex-court-decision-ignores-nuance-of-sex-gender-and-identity/

LGBT blogs and news outlets (including this one yesterday morning) have offered coverage of the case of Nikki Araguz of Texas. She is the widow of a deceased firefighter whose ex-wife sued after his passing, demanding that Araguz not receive any death benefits because she was born male. The ex-wife successfully convinced a judge that the marriage was thus a same-sex marriage, prohibited under Texas law. However, Araguz has now shared on her blog that she was actually born intersex and she is not transgender as has been reported:

    While I appreciate all of the support, I am setting the record straight: I am a heterosexual woman, who happened to have born intersex, and yes, I did have a transsexual medical condition, yet that has been treated and corrected."

To be fair, courts and the legal system in general, is not exactly structured to do 'nuance.'  They do 'broad,' 'sweeping,' and 'general'.

Enter medical science.  That should have taken any nuance out of the case and allowed the court to do their broad, sweeping and general stuff.  It didn't because they didn't allow it.  A broad, sweeping and general disdain for TG people ruled the decision.

Not helping matters was the fact that the legal team chose to litigate a CAUSE instead of representing the CLIENT (you know, the suddenly widowed heterosexual woman who was embroiled in an estate matter where Texas law expressly states that an action to void a marriage CANNOT be undertaken after the death of one of the spouses).  This case was lost at the trial court level by a failure to focus on the CLIENT and her marriage...the efforts were sunk by the weight of the bandwagon trying to hang on Nikki's coattails. 

Quote from: Ann Onymous on June 03, 2011, 12:19:38 PM
Not helping matters was the fact that the legal team chose to litigate a CAUSE instead of representing the CLIENT (you know, the suddenly widowed heterosexual woman who was embroiled in an estate matter where Texas law expressly states that an action to void a marriage CANNOT be undertaken after the death of one of the spouses).  This case was lost at the trial court level by a failure to focus on the CLIENT and her marriage...the efforts were sunk by the weight of the bandwagon trying to hang on Nikki's coattails.

Truer words have never been spoken!

Dawn

Quote from: Julie Marie on June 03, 2011, 12:12:27 PM
Enter medical science.  That should have taken any nuance out of the case and allowed the court to do their broad, sweeping and general stuff.  It didn't because they didn't allow it.  A broad, sweeping and general disdain for TG people ruled the decision.

I'm thinking that if there is enough weight in this point, it should be utilized as piling-on of evidence in appeal (should new and corroborating evidence be deemed admissible upon appeal) as measure to put this issue to bed for good!


Dawn

Nikki was sunk by a redneck judge.
Any judge worth his salt would have ignored the media circus and rampant bigotry in the local comunity and he would have just listened to the facts.

Quote from: cynthialee on June 03, 2011, 12:34:29 PM
Nikki was sunk by a redneck judge.
Any judge worth his salt would have ignored the media circus and rampant bigotry in the local comunity and he would have just listened to the facts.

The Judge was NOT the problem.  The judge can only rule on the pleadings brought before the court...CRITICAL issues were ignored by the legal team.  The media circus only came to town because counsel insisted on trying a CAUSE.  Only after it was too late did Nikki realize that her counsel did not truly have her own best interests at heart...

Quote from: Ann Onymous on June 03, 2011, 12:19:38 PM
Not helping matters was the fact that the legal team chose to litigate a CAUSE instead of representing the CLIENT (you know, the suddenly widowed heterosexual woman who was embroiled in an estate matter where Texas law expressly states that an action to void a marriage CANNOT be undertaken after the death of one of the spouses).  This case was lost at the trial court level by a failure to focus on the CLIENT and her marriage...the efforts were sunk by the weight of the bandwagon trying to hang on Nikki's coattails.

This is really interesting. It is so difficult to follow many legal cases from this side of the pond, simply because we see things happening, such as the apparent crowd pleasing and seeming rabble rousing, that are entirely alien to generally happens here.

Quote from: Ann Onymous on June 03, 2011, 12:19:38 PM
where Texas law expressly states that an action to void a marriage CANNOT be undertaken after the death of one of the spouses

Even though I come from a long line of attorneys and I was raised on trial, this is one thing about the law I simply never got.  If the law states what you said Ann, then how can any judge, for any reason, rule otherwise?  I know you said her legal team failed her, but how could that result in a ruling contrary to Texas law? 

And in that ruling, wouldn't there be a precedent set that would make that law difficult to enforce from here on out?  I would think that alone would have people screaming from the rafters, particularly wives counting on pensions, social security and other financial securities surviving spouses typically get.