Follow Up

I had to read that "US to Deport Man Who Has Transsexual Wife" story again to catch the impact. Welcome to the New Morality (TM), ladies and gentlemen.  I was actually looking for a link to the Tom Ridge resignation when I stumbled across this story from the LA ABC affiliate:

LOS ANGELES -- A lawsuit filed against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services alleges the agency discriminated against a Filipino couple when it denied the husband's legal residency because his wife had a sex change operation nearly 24 years ago.

Now, I don't know how well this guy's story checks out.  It seems that he's 27, and his wife is 58.  Sounds like a marriage of convenience possibility.  However, it does appear that the Feds are solely basing their denial of residency on the fact that the woman had a sex change in 1981.  They refused his application three weeks after they found out.

Look at this graf:

The Department of Homeland Security said in a letter to Javenella explaining its decision that "currently, no federal statute or regulation addresses specifically the question whether someone born a man or a woman can surgically change his or her sex."

The letter cited an internal memorandum dated April 16, 2004, that said CIS policy "disallows recognition of change of sex in order for a marriage between two persons born of the same sex to be considered bona fide ... ." The memo calls on the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act - which defines marriage for federal purposes as between a man and a woman - to support its position.

So now nobody can get a sex change and then marry, and have it recognized in the US.  Is that what I'm reading here?  Is their argument that women with a sex change can't marry a man because they USED to be a man?  And mind you, this sex change was 24 years ago.  So what's the statute of limitations here?  And exactly why is the immigration service deciding on this policy, rather than the legislative branch?

Here's a couple more grafs of interest:

"I'm certainly not aware of any other cases where the INS is interpreting or disregarding someone's sex reassignment," he (attorney Alphonso David) said. "It's a little problematic because they're saying that someone who has been living as a woman for 24 years now ... will be treated as a male."

David said the decision also sets up a conflict between state and federal law, because California is one of about 25 states that reissue birth certificates to transsexuals after sex change operations and legally recognize them as their new gender.

Ganzon, a registered nurse, was born in the Philippines and has lived in the United States for more than 25 years, Abramowitz said. She was granted U.S. citizenship in 1987 - six years after her sex change operation - and given a certificate that listed her sex as female, the lawsuit said. The couple met in the Philippines in 2000 and Javenella was granted legal residence in the United States on June 5, 2001. The couple married in Las Vegas on Nov. 21, 2001.

She's listed as female on her fucking certificate of citizenship! But this is too close to gay marriage, I guess. That's nasty. Let's just legislate it away.

And here's my favorite part... this lawyer's got some balls:

The lawsuit also names as defendants Attorney General John Ashcroft; Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge; William Yates, CIS associate director for operations; and Jane Arellano, director of CIS' Los Angeles district office.

I'd pay money to see Ridge and Ashcroft take the stand in this one.  Maybe that's why he's leaving Homeland Security, to prep.