The First, Legal Gay Marriage In Texas?
NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - Judge Carl Ginsberg presided over two ceremonies its participants believe are the first, legal gay marriage in Texas.
Two couples said their "I-do's" and all four people consider themselves female. But one member of each couple has had their gender changed surgically from male to female.
"On all of my information, it still says male," said Ashely Boucher. "So, legally I'm still male in the state of Texas. My presentation would suggest otherwise. But my documentation says that I can marry Genevieve no questions asked.
"If you were born male and became female through being transgendered or having a gender reassignment surgery, they consider you to be biologically male," said UTA political science professor Thomas Marshall.
The couples struggled to find clerks and judges who would cooperate with the marriages trying as many as 17 courts according to one of the participants, Genevieve Jonte.
"The lady at the clerk said, 'But you two are women'," said Jonte. "And we said, "Well, here are our documents. Can you give us a license?' And they didn't know what to say. A lot of closing the blinds.
"We sat our child between us when we applied there and said, 'We're a normal couple just like anybody else'."
Jonte said she has two children from a previous marriage.
The couples are clear, they want to send a message. "I hope that we can be an inspiration for someone like myself who thought a few years ago this wouldn't be possible," Jonte said.
"That's all I want is to be equal," said J.J. Larson who married her transgender partner, too.
"It will be interesting to see if the state tries to intervene in this at all or upper appeals courts in Texas try to reverse this decision," Professor Marshall said. "Certainly that would put their cases elsewhere in a very weak position if they were trying to do that.
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