Court Opinion

ID: 9756505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:31:12.1736+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:24.046987
License: Public Domain

KAREN ANGELINI, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment. Given the complete absence of any legislative guidelines for determining whether Texas law will recognize a marriage between a male-to-female transsexual and a male, this court is charged with making that determination. This case involves no disputed fact issues for a jury to decide, but presents this court with pure issues of law and public policy.
In his opinion, Chief Justice Hardberger has concluded, based on an analysis of other cases considering this issue, that Texas law will not recognize Christie Lee Littleton’s marriage to John Mark Little-ton. In doing so, Chief Justice Hardber-ger notes his agreement with the Ladrach *232decision, which indicates that this is a matter best left to the legislature. He further notes, in accordance with the Corbett case, that because we lack statutory guidance at this time, we must instead be guided by biological factors such as chromosomes, gonads, and genitalia at birth. According to Chief Justice Hardberger, such biological considerations are preferable to psychological factors as tools for making the decision we must make. In this case, I must agree.
I note, however, that “real difficulties ... will occur if these three criteria [chromosomal, gonadal and genital tests] are not congruent.” Corbett v. Corbett, 2 All E.R. 33, 48 (P.1970). We must recognize the fact that, even when biological factors are considered, there are those individuals whose sex may be ambiguous. See Julie A. Greenberg, Defining Male and Female: Intersexuality and the Collision Between Law and Biology, 41 Abiz. L.Rev. 265 (1999). Having recognized this fact, I express no opinion as to how the law would view such individuals with regard to marriage. We are, however, not presented with such a case at this time. See Corbett, 2 All E.R. at 48-49.
The stipulated evidence in the case that is before us establishes that Christie Lee Littleton was born Lee Edward Cavazos, Jr., a male. Her doctors described her as a true transsexual, which is “someone whose physical anatomy does not correspond to their sense of being or their sense of gender.... ” Thus, in the case of Christie Lee Littleton, it appears that all biological and physical factors were congruent and were consistent with those of a typical male at birth. The only pre-opera-tive distinction between Christie Lee Lit-tleton and a typical male was her psychological sense of being a female. Under these facts, I agree that Texas law will not recognize her marriage to a male.