Gay Marriage Becomes Transsexual Issue

(Concord, New Hampshire) Judi Howden went into her marriage knowing
full well that one day her husband might become her wife.

The couple stayed together - even as Howden's husband, Michael,
underwent a sex-change operation that transformed him into Mikayla.
That surgery also landed them in a murky area where gender and law
collide.

Their marriage - once between a man and a woman - is now between a 
woman and a woman, despite a ban on such unions in 40 states, including
New Hampshire.

Their experience highlights a legal Catch-22. While states can either
recognize or refuse to recognize someone's new gender following a sex
change, either decision inescapably permits some form of same-sex
marriage.

If the gender change is recognized, then existing, heterosexual
marriages such as the Howdens' become same-sex. If recognition is
denied, a de facto same-sex marriage emerges since the spouses' genders
differ only on paper, not visibly.

``I have no answer to it,'' said state Rep. Dan Itse, a Republican who
supports the state's same-sex marriage ban. ``We have ventured where
angels fear to tread.''

The federal government must decide if Mikayla Howden, a U.S. citizen 
born overseas, can update her birth certificate. It hasn't yet ruled,
and Shannon Minter, of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in
California, said the Bush administration has not been as accommodating
as earlier administrations.

According to the center, four states don't permit gender updates:
Tennessee, Ohio, Kansas and Texas. About half of the remaining states
do. A firm policy hasn't been legally well established in the remaining
states, including  New Hampshire, said Minter, the center's legal
director.

``Whether or not society will acknowledge our marriage, I think, is my
biggest fear,'' Judi Howden said. ``That someday, someone may pass
legislation  that says, `Because you are now two females, you are no
longer married.' For anyone
  to say that they have the right to break up a family, I don't think
is
right.''

The Howdens' marriage clearly was legal when it began, and same-sex
marriage bans cannot automatically invalidate it, Minter said, just as
states  don't automatically annul marriages for adultery or abuse.

But at least one conservative group would like to change that. The Rev.
Louis Sheldon, founder and chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition
in Washington, D.C., said marriages such as the Howdens' should be 
dissolved.

``Absolutely,'' he said. ``We don't want the roof to leak in any place.
We must make sure that marriage is protected.''

Sheldon's coalition, a lobby claiming more than 43,000 member churches,
  is crafting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex
marriages and civil unions. The Howdens, he said, have slipped through
a ``legal loophole.''

Judi Howden may be in a legal loophole, but she said she's happy. Her
household is like many across America. There are prayers at meal times
and children's toys in every room.

Her wedding to Michael Howden nearly four years ago - her second
marriage - has produced love and another child. She said she struggled
with Mikayla's emergence, but struggled even more with the idea of
separating.

``There was so strong of a connection for Mikayla and I,'' she said.
``I never knew that there was such a relationship out there in the
world.''

Social conservatives often portray same-sex marriage as a moral issue.
But Mikayla Howden called changing her gender a life-and-death
decision, not a lifestyle choice. Living as a man was fundamentally
wrong, she said, and nearly led her to suicide.

``What are you going to pick? You certainly hope for the point of
wanting to pick life,'' said Mikayla Howden, who changed her name in
2003 and underwent a sex change in September. ``So many of us, because
of society, choose death.''

Transsexuals are not the only people who have sex-change operations.
Surgery also is used to treat ``intersex'' conditions such as
improperly formed genitalia.

Updating birth certificates isn't the only legal challenge facing
transsexuals. State gay-marriage bans complicate such core activities
as buying and inheriting property together or collecting insurance.

In 1999, a Texas appeals court upheld a ruling against a transsexual
who became a woman and married a man. The court ruled the marriage an
invalid union of two men, denying the transsexual money from a wrongful
death settlement after her husband died.

Cases in Florida and Illinois are addressing whether transsexuals who
have become men are legally fathers of children who were born through
artificial insemination or adopted into their families while they were
married.

And in California, a transsexual who became a woman is challenging a
ruling that denied her husband citizenship because she was born male,
Minter said.

``The human consequences are really painful,'' Minter said.

For the Howdens, the responsibilities of home and raising a family - a
child of their own and two from Judi Howden's previous marriage - have
helped them through tough emotional times. So has open, honest
communication.

``It isn't always easy, but it's the most important, even when it comes
to your fears,'' Judi Howden said. ``Because when you hold those fears
inside, it doubles them.''

Associated Press 2005