Alright, so I realize I haven't discussed marriage on this blog and how it will affect me as a transwomyn. Being a transwomyn complicates things incredibly! Doesn't help that I am also a dyke to go along with it. The laws vary depending on the state one is living in. In some states, can't think of their names right now, what your chromosomes say determine who you can marry, I'm pretty sure its a southern state that has that law, go figure right? Doesn't matter what whether a transwomyn or transman has the surgery or not, if you have two X's you can only marry people with an X and Y and if you have an X and Y you can only marry people with two X's. Unless science figures out a way to change chromosomes of already alive people, trans people are pretty much screwed in these states, unless a federal law comes along.
In some states, like where I live, who someone can marry depends on their genitals. For example, in my state, I am still "legally" a male because I have a cock and haven't had the surgery yet. That means I can legally marry a womyn if I so choose. They legally can't stop me from doing that. If they tell me I can't because I am a womyn I can say "not according to the law I'm not" and I can get married to the womyn I love. However, the moment I get the surgery and am legally a womyn, I can't marry womyn anymore only men.
That just shows the insanity that is marriage laws in this country. I bet you there are LOTS of weddings where transwomyn and men are marrying the same gender all over this country everyday. Gay marriage is already happening. And look, that divorce rates and such aren't sky rocketing off the charts *GASP!*. We still have very high divorce rates, but if those marriages have any affect on them it is no doubt within the margin of error. Gay marriage is already happening and nothing has been damaged!
Why are we stopping people who love each other to get married, and see if they can make it work? Love is love people, no one should be denied that. Divorce rates are already very high and I highly doubt gay people are going to do any thing to change that, one way or the other. However, maybe, just maybe if more people who are excited about the chance to get married do, maybe those divorce rates will slowly begin to go down. No one even seems to want to bring that up as a possibility.
Why do we care so much about what gender the people are who get married? I hear a lot of the talk that gay marriage will "redefine marriage" mostly from people who truly don't realize just how many times marriage has been "redefined". To really go back to traditional marriage, we would have to go back to a day where womyn where property. Where marriage was more about getting land and making two families more wealthy than about love. Long ago black people couldn't marry white people and back in the days of slavery, black people couldn't marry each other. I ask the people who want "traditional" marriage, do you want all of that again? Or do you think it will be a step backwards rather than defending marriage?
Why are letting the religious right in this country control this issue? In an ideal world churches would accept gay marriage and help us with get married and some do. We live far from an ideal world, but I and others like me don't want to MAKE the churches do anything they don't want too. We just want the legal right to get married under the law. Is that so much to ask? We just want the same right that every straight couple has in this country.
Marriage in this country shouldn't be about gender, race or chromosomes, but it should be about celebrating the love of the two people. Get rid of those fucking labels of male, female, black, white, Latino/Latina, Asian, etc, etc and just celebrate the love of two human beings! We are all people searching for that someone who we love and who loves us back and we all deserve to have that love legally recognized under the law if we so choose. So, that we can have the all the benefits that go with that recognition.
I agree with you for the most part. I just want to point out that, while it's stupid to deny people marriage based on things like gender and race and whatever, legal marriage isn't really about love. It never really was. Being legally married provides people with a variety of benefits that happily coupled "single" people don't get. (You did mention this in the last line, I know...) The problem is that certain people are denied these benefits for the reasons stated above.
ReplyDeletePeople who love each other make commitments to each other constantly. Their friends and family can recognize (or not) their "couple"ness without a legal marriage. My aunt and uncle have been together basically since I was born. I refer to her as my aunt even though she's not legally part of my family. Similarly, people who don't love each other can get married for convenience (visas, health care, etc.), and their friends and family probably don't treat it as more "real" than we treat my uncle's relationship.
Anyway, I just want to reiterate that I agree with the heart behind this entry, but I think that marriage as a "celebration of the love of two human beings" and as being recognized by those around you is an easy thing to accomplish. It doesn't have to be legal to be a celebration (see: birthdays). The legal benefits and options should be available to everyone too, but they're not what makes a marriage.
I was saying that is what marriage should be about, the love of two human beings. Right now it isn't, it is more about stupid things like what whats between your legs, chromosomes, etc. It should be about the love of two people, who just happen to get benefits that other couples don't have. Those benefits are just an added bonus to that.
ReplyDeleteFor those people who love each other and don't want to go through getting legally married, more power to them. My dad and step-mom have gone that route. What I was trying to get at is that legal marriage should focus more about the love of the two people. You'll always have those marriages of convenience, theres no real way to stop those, but over all legal marriage should be about love.
This does not mean that one has to get married legally to have a celebration of two peoples love. Gay people have been doing that forever. However, legal marriage should also be about love IMO.
I dunno. Laws are passed on from generation to generation (even if the generations are only 4 years long). People enforcing laws are enforcing interpretations of written words. Love can't be expressed in written words (especially not in legal language), and it's even harder to be accurately interpreted.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, I think that legal marriage should have nothing to do with love. Further proof that this is a good idea is the fact that legal marriage has never been about love.
But anyway, sorry for taking you off topic. The overall aim was, as I said repeatedly above, something I agree with. I just don't think that laws are or should be based on emotion.
One of my HUGE problems with marriage laws are that most of the politicians (right-wing and left-wing) commenting on the issue are blindly accepting the sexual status quo from whenever/wherever/however they grew up. If you came of age in a time/place/culture where same-sex relationships were considered disgusting or immoral, it's going to take a lot of personal work to overcome that. Unless they really want to see all the evidence to the contrary, a lot of people aren't going to change their views. That certainly isn't an excuse for transphobic/homophobic policymaking, but it definitely makes activism more difficult.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the slightly off-topic rant; I just finished reading a book called "The Way We Never Were," and am slightly pissed off at the way we let some sort of fake, idealized nostalgia dictate so much of what is "acceptable' in American life.