That's the problem we have to confront when dealing with transgendered people: how do we define male and female. I had a penis for nearly 50 years, I never was a man. Are we going to go with just what's between a person's legs to assign sex? Going with chromosomes? Going with brain pattern? Going with who they say they are? That's the crux of the issue.

I lived as a man, I was married to women twice (still am married to one of the women because she is capable of seeing past the packaging and recognizing the person inside). In the end I think we will have to go with who a person says they are rather than any of the other options because none of the other options come from the person themself. The pressure on a person to function in society in accordance with their visible sex characteristics is ENORMOUS. The conflict and the mixed messages that a female body sends to a male brain or vice versa are so confusing that we struggle to find any kind of rational way of dealing with all the confusion.

The person he was married to was a man inside but was desperately trying to live the life that was forced on him/her by society. It's a nuts way to live and that's why some studies show that about half of all trans-people take their own lives by the age of 30.

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The apocalypse is coming... we're gonna need more ammo.

no, but then the court's not pointing at that person and making you admit you had sex with them, are they?


in this case, that's exactly what they're doing, basically trying to make this guy admit he married a guy. he didn't marry a guy, why pay alimony to a guy?

it also needs to be acknowledged that if this woman felt like a man on the inside her whole life, she should have told that to the husband. if she knew, and didn't tell him, then that might have been something to keep them from getting married. would they have gotten married if, on the inside, he knew she wanted to be a man? i say no, and i also say that when you buy the cow, you don't buy it as is. if someone pulls surprises out of a hat on the wedding night that you weren't aware of, it's within your rights to say "I was swindled!" and end the affair without having to pay money for it.

if i didnt have sexd with my fiance ever until the wedding night, but lo and behold i find she's a hermaphrodite, is pregnant, and has an outbreak of herpes i wasn't aware of that she never told me about, ya know what, fuck alimony, i'm leaving and nobody's going to stop me.

And wouldn't it be nice if that's the way things happen, but it isn't. First, many transpeople have no idea what's wrong with them, this culture denies that transpeople exist, refuses to disseminate information about them, persecutes them if they talk about how they feel, prevents them from getting medical care by denying that their condition exists, and if they have the temerity to out themselves and try to live as who they feel they are they are often beaten or killed, denied jobs, refused services, and even prevented from using public bathrooms. Did you know, Midget, the the American Medical Association has been treating transpeople successfully for more than 30 years? This is another case of blaming the victim. Transpeople are denied everything they need to learn about and treat their condition and then when they try to live the way the society demands of them and fail they are targeted for additional abuse by people who have no clue about the condition from which they suffer. Suffer is the correct word, too.

From puberty I knew something was wrong, but I was nearly 30 before I even found out that transpeople existed. I've had counseling all of my teen and adult life and never once did any counselor or doctor mention gender issues. It never occured to me that my problem was gender linked because I always heard all the crap put out by the culture about transpeople and I knew that wasn't me. It wasn't until I was 46 that I got my first inkling of my problem being connected with gender, and after that it was 4 years of study and experimentation and counseling before I knew that I needed to transition. It's a real black and white process when you talk about it, Midget, but in reality it's all shades of gray hidden behind a wall of denial erected by a culture suffering from a deep-seated religious bigotry that denies our existence.

Go to the TRANSSEXUALISM ISN'T A MORAL ISSUE thread and read Hank's posts and you'll have a glimmer of how we are treated in this culture.

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The apocalypse is coming... we're gonna need more ammo.

it may not be a black and white issue and i'm not trying to bring down a whole set of people with this specific dilemma, i'm just saying that this guy never married a man, and he shouldn't pay money to a man.

maybe this woman didn't know about gender issues early enough, as you suggest, but i said "IF she knew." IF is a key word there. If she was aware of gender confusion and all that, but kept it from her husband, then he bought into something he wasn't aware of and should not be punished for it.

Yes, I agree with what you're saying here. I don't think that someone who can save the scratch for a surgery like that probably needs any financial help.


Well, they were of opposite genders while married. I don't think anything could retroactively alter that.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

You're mistaken midget. A transgender person with a female body IS a man, before and/or after an operation, even if they look female on the outside. And a transgender person with a male body is a woman, even if they look male on the outside.

Some people are born with a penis and a vagina. Some people are born with a penis instead of a vagina and visa versa, it's nature....they don't choose to be born with the wrong body parts.

there's a difference between knowing you're a man and being one, sam. did this woman know of her gender confusion beforehand is the question, ok, and it's relevant. why do people keep skirting it by trying to explain how transgender people feel instead of how they act?! Fuck feelings, they don't mean anything unless they are communicated to your partner!

and, based on the argument that transgender people "are" men even if they have a woman's body (a point i don't agree with but another topic for another time maybe) then did this guy know he was going to marry a "man"? did the state (see previous same-sex marriage legality argument)?

These questions matter, ok. and you didn't really argue my point at all.

I don't think it matters what kind of operation the ex has when it comes to alimony. If your ex got her arm chopped off, do you get to pay less alimony? My point is, it's the same person you married if they declare they are a transgender, if they declare they are Jesus reincarnated, if they declare they have been abducted by aliens, or if they declare they are learning a new language. These might be things you never knew about when you were married to them, but they are still the same person.

If she deliberately lied to him, you are correct, but more than likely she didn't know much more than he did. The man did however marry a transsexual and perhaps (I don't know the particulars) he should continue to pay alimony to that transsexual.

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The apocalypse is coming... we're gonna need more ammo.

The feelings are the crux of the matter, explaining feelings for which you have no words because the culture you were raised in denies that people like you exist makes this tough to do. Most transsexuals have no idea what's wrong with them, they are every bit as much ignorant as the general population about who and what transsexuals are or are not. She probably had no cogent vision of her transsexuality to communicate to him, and even if she had he probably wouldn't have understood it anyway since he has no background to let him have a perspective to encompass the concept. This is the blind leading the blind for most of us.

I never had an inkling of an idea that I was trans, I knew that people didn't see me as being much of a man, I was called gay or queer a lot, but I didn't find men sexually attractive so I didn't think I was homosexual--I didn't know what was wrong and it took more than 30 years, a gifted partner and years of additional research and counseling to help me discover that I was a transsexual. There's no test for this, there's no place to go and find out if you're trans, and the few resources that are available are restricted or denied to the people who need them the most by the deeply entrenched religious bigotry that pervades our culture.

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The apocalypse is coming... we're gonna need more ammo.

Greetings and Felicitations,

I think this must vary from state to state. In Tennessee, after you give over the child suppport the ex can do whatever they want with it. They can set the check on fire in front of you and there is nothing you can do about it.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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What makes the sex change different in terms of parental responsibility?
Why is the idiot dad (the natural one) punishing the kids for?
Just a cheap skate son of a crap who is looking for excuses.

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the guy should continue child support if that's what's being asked of him, but that's a seperate matter from alimony

MareTranquility, again, it doesn't matter if your feelings confuse you. In the case of this ... case ... she should have communcated something. You don't know the words, whatever, but does she have the common courtesy to say "i'm upset and feel funny." if she didn't then that's her problem. Again, communication is relevant, even if it's not "yo, i'm really a guy deep down," it's important.

marriage is freakin complicated. i thought alimony was based on supporting kids. didnt realize that couples pay each other like they are prostitutes while separated. anyway, damn. i guess thats why i'll never get married.

back to the topic: the father has to pay another man alimony for being separated. i'm not sure how to feel about this. alimony is new concept - so i guess i'll just say that i support the fathers contention that he should not have to pay alimony to another guy because he never married a guy.

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I have no idea what she did or did not tell her husband, but this kind of thing doesn't spring up full-blown, the husband here may have known and is pretending otherwise to protect his own image. We don't have enough intimate information to condemn either party in this dispute.

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The apocalypse is coming... we're gonna need more ammo.