Jessica and Robin Wicks - same-sex couple is able to marry due to legal technicality over gender identity - Brief Article

Used an otherwise bigoted Texas court ruling to farce the state to allow them to marry

With all the hoopla in 2000 over Vermont-style civil unions, a lot of people may have missed a real same-sex wedding last September in Texas, of all places. Jessica and Robin Wicks were legally married in Bexar County after the two learned of a stale appeals court ruling that said gender could be defined only by a person's chromosomes. Jessica, a male-to-female transsexual, was therefore a man in the eyes of Texas.

Ironically, the court case that opened the door for the Wickses closed it for another transsexual, who was told she could not sue for the wrongful death of her husband because she was born a man and, as a result, could not have been in a legal marriage. "Isn't this amazing?" the Wickses' attorney, Phyllis Frye, told 1he San Antonio Express-News when the couple were granted their marriage license. "We've got a same-sex marriage that is legal and a heterosexual marriage that was made illegal. That's what happens when government meddles in people's lives."

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