Sex Change Didn't 'Magically Dissolve' Marriage
Sex Change Didn't 'Magically Dissolve' Marriage
(CN) - A Michigan woman suffering from dementia was properly granted a divorce from her husband who had surgically become a woman, a state appeals court ruled.
Devon Pearl Burnett got married in 1984 and lived with her husband until 2005.
Two years earlier, Burnett's husband had undergone gender reassignment surgery to become a woman.
While their mother was 79 and suffering from dementia, her children, Joseph Buxbaum and Beryl Ellen Niles, filed for divorce.
Bobbie Eliza Burnett, as the spouse is named in the court record, initially tried to challenge the authority of guardians and conservators to sue for divorce on behalf of an incapacitated ward.
When that failed, she argued that the court did not have jurisdiction since the marriage had been illegal under Michigan law, which recognizes marriage as the union between one man and one woman.
Granting a divorce would be an implicit recognition of marriage between individuals of the same gender, she argued.
The Washtenaw Circuit Court shot this argument down, however, finding that the parties entered into a valid marriage contract, not a same-sex marriage contract.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/04/19/56899.htm
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