Comment: Trans people need equality to get our marriages, confiscated by the state back
Comment: Trans people need equality to get our marriages, confiscated by the state back
Liberal Democrat councillor Sarah Brown explains from the perspective of a transgendered person why she’s supporting the Out4Marriage campaign. The current unfair and discriminating system of opposite sex marriages and same sex civil partnerships has meant that she and her wife were forced to surrender their marriage and instead consider themselves ‘civil partners’.
Much has been written on the subject of the government’s marriage equality consultation. From the perspective of many transgender people, lots of it misses some key points.
The first question in the consultation refers to “marriage regardless of gender”. This wording is significant; the government is not asking about same sex marriage, or even opposite sex civil partnerships. It’s proposing to remove consideration of sex and gender from the recognition of marriage, at least as far as civil marriage is concerned.
This may seem like nitpicking, but precision here matters. What does it mean to define something as being for “opposite sexes” when many trans people fall outside the male/female binary? How are we to interpret marriage between two people of prescribed sexes when that sex can, to all appearances and as far as the state is concerned, change?
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/05/19/comment-trans-people-need-equality-to-get-our-marriages-confiscated-by-the-state-back/
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