xoros

Seeing as I live as female and most of the time most people are seeing me as the woman I am, my partner and I are usually seen as a lesbian couple. Which is all fine. We’re actually married too, in the UK. Not a Civil Partnership, but your actual marriage.

OK so now it gets silly, not quite as silly as the nonsense described in the US in this very thought provoking opinion piece in the New York Times about marriage and how trans people show up the inconsitencies in how it is defined, but still pretty nonsensical. We are in a happy, stable relationship and we are commited to each other and wish to remain so. However if I change my birth certificate we would be forced, yes that’s right, required, to get divorced. Why? So that the artificial and frankly wrong distinction between a marriage and a civil partnership can be maintained. It’s a trick solution. Conservatives can be mollified that civil partnerships are not a “real” marriage, same gender couples can at least have their commitments recognised and given rights. Everyone can feel like a winner.

Unless one of you is trans.

Then you really notice the idiocy of it. So our relationship would be the same, same people, same love, same commitment. But because my gender would alter on my birth certificate we would end up becoming a divorce statistic when we don’t even want to divorce, spending money on the court system and generally having to mess about with something that should either be made automatic or better still, not be needed at all. Marriage should just be marriage. Long term commitment based in love between two adults. No ifs, buts, discussion or definitions beyond that. Anything else is unequal and unfair to everyone.