Williams Knows Best

Texas Senator Williams (R –Woodlands) has made it clear that he is an extremist who believes that politicians should get to decide what sex you are. If your child is intersex, he believes that his opinion counts more than the informed counsel of medical, psychological and/or genetic specialists. He thinks he knows what legal sex an intersex child must be better than the child’s own parents.  In complex cases where a child is intersex, Williams wants to take away the power of a parent as well as Texas judges to make informed decisions based upon expert testimony.

In 1999, the Texas 4^th circuit court of appeals used a 40 year old defunct non-American law as guidance to conclude that God made 2 immutable sexes which relegated all the Texas children and adults who undergo genital corrective surgery into a legal limbo.

“The deeper philosophical (and now legal) question is: can a physician change the gender of a person with a scalpel, drugs and counseling, or is a person’s gender immutably fixed by our Creator at birth?” – Chief Justice Phil Hardberger, Littleton v Prange, 1999

In support of Justice Hardberger’s logic, Justice Karen Angelini recognized the fact that Littleton v Prange is problematic for intersex people, saying:

“[Because] we lack statutory guidance at this time, we must instead be guided by biological factors such as chromosomes, gonads, and genitalia at birth. […] such biological considerations are preferable to psychological factors as tools for making the decision we must make. I note, however, that ‘real difficulties … will occur if these three criteria [chromosomal, gonadal and genital tests] are not congruent.’ We must recognize the fact that, even when biological factors are considered, there are those individuals whose sex may be ambiguous. 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.” – Justice Karen Angelini, (Concurring Opinion) Littleton v Prange, 1999

In other words, they knew Littleton v Prange would be problematic for intersex Texans, but they just didn’t care. Under Littleton v Prange case law, everyone is whatever your doctor said you were on your birth certificate and that can never be challenged no matter what gonads, chromosomes or natural gender you are later found to have.

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By The Numbers: Who Does Williams Get to Sex?

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If Sen. Williams has his way, Littleton v Prange case law will become State law and corrective genital surgery won’t matter for the one of the 1 in 500 Texans who’ve undergone corrective genital surgery each and every year. Yes, you heard that right: 1 in 500 Texans..

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• In 2009, the population of Texas was 24,782,302. About two percent of that (495,646) can be expected to be born with an intersex condition.
• In 2008, the number of Texas live births was 405,554. About 1 in 500 (811 per year) can be expected to receive corrective genital surgery.

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Common Sense?

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Sen. Williams seems to think that the lives of half a million Texans are his to toy with. He claims that his is a righteous effort to save heterosexual-only marriage. Ironically if Sen. Williams has his way, this man in the photo below will only ever be able to marry another man:

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Yes, that’s right. In his misguided effort to prevent gay marriage, it seems that he may become the architect of  gay marriage in Texas. You see, the above man has a birth certificate that states that he was born female.  Under Littleton v Prange case law, this supposedly make perfect sense:

Yes, when Sen. Williams looks at the above two people, what he sees are two women that need to be married off to men. To Sen. Williams, the following female fashion model needs to be married off to a good woman:

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Again, under Littleton v Prange case law, this supposedly make perfect sense:

Instead of using common sense and allowing medical experts, parents and Texas judges make determinations of sex on a case-by-case basis, Senator Williams thinks he knows better. You see, Sen. Williams doesn’t need chromosomal testing, genetic tests, FMRI scans or the informed consultation of any medical or psychological expert; he knows that each and every child born in Texas is always correctly sexed at birth. And yes, while the medical facts fly in the face of that premise, when compared to Sen. Williams’ misguided world view, the lives of the half million Texans who underwent corrective genital surgeries are apparently irrelevant.

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Senate Bill 723: The Resurrection

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For a quick overview of what Senate Bill 723 is, why it will destroy the lives of thousands and what you can do, watch this 2 minute video:

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The legislative intent of Senate Bill 723 explicitly states that stripping away a current trans-positive State law is appropriate due to Littleton case law which states that whatever sex the doctor put on your birth certificate is what you are forever and ever and can never ever be changed. In other words, if the doctor wrote “male” on your birth certificate, you’re male and if the doctor wrote “female” on your birth certificate, you’re female… no matter what. Passage of this bill will enshrine Littleton case law logic into State Law.

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The bill (SB 723) won’t pass unless at least one Democrat votes for it. After the alarm about SB 723 was initially sounded, the support Sen. Williams thought he had evaporated and the bill was effectively dead.  However, the bill was resurrected Monday because Senate Democrat Carlos Uresti was persuaded to support it. Sen. Uresti comes from San Antonio and San Antonio is where Littleton case law comes from.

On top of Sen. Uresti’s abrupt change of heart, the right wing has been working hard to build support for this bill:

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Here’s the inside scoop on Senate Democrat Carlos  Uresti’s betrayal:

I wanted to fill you all in with respect to my most recent conversation with a staff member for Senator Carlos Uresti. As you know, Mr. Uresti voted “Present, Not Voting” in committee, which allowed this bill to go to the floor.

I advised his staff that I was a constituent and calling with regard to SB 723. I inquired as to whether or not Mr. Uresti had declared his vote. I was advised that as of yesterday, his Chief of Staff was still unaware as to how Mr. Uresti would be voting, but the bill was simply a “clean-up” bill. I expressed my discomfort with the idea that the bill was a clean-up bill and told them that a yes vote or further abstention would be abhorrent and directly impact citizens of Texas. I explained the effect the bill would have on those born intersex who are assigned a gender by a doctor even when they have ambiguous genitalia and that a yes vote is an attack of persons born with a medical condition – even when it is later discovered that the doctor made a mistake in choosing the gender marker of that person. This seemed to resonate slightly with the staffer, but he never truly seemed interested until I advised of my position with GetEQUAL TX and that we are watching the Senator’s vote very closely.

– Cristan’s inside source

Now that Sen. Williams has found his turncoat, he’s put it on the Legislative intent calendar for this week. If Senate Democrat Carlos I. Uresti (or any of the other Texas Senate Democrats) refuses to stand up for the half million Texans who have had gender confirming surgery, Sen. Williams will succeed in his bid to legally resex thousands of Texans.

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Re-branding and the Fallout

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Senator Williams seems to like to talk out of both sides of his mouth. Sometimes he claims that SB 723 is just a “clean up bill” that will make life easier for county clerks. Sometimes he claims that this is his effort to save marriage from the gays. If you watched the above video, you can hear him say both. From Senator Uresti’s reaction, it seems like he fell for the whole, “it’s just a clean up bill” line.

Senator Williams claims that this bill is about preventing gay marriage. However, this seems to be a red herring since intersex and transsexed people will still be able to use their federal passports, etc to obtain a marriage license. SB 723 WILL NOT prevent trans people from getting married (even though that marriage could be challenged in the same way Littleton and Agaguz’s marriage was challenged). So, the real question is… if this bill won’t actually prevent trans people from marrying, what will it actually do?

Most of the media has reported that this is an anti-trans/anti-gay marriage bill. What they don’t seem to understand is the a bill has 2 pieces: the bill text and the bill intent. The intent is what gives any law context. Legislative intent is the thing that judges look at when trying to make a legal decision.

It is the legislative intent of SB 723 to ensure that Littleton case law logic becomes the context by which the State of Texas views the process of defining legal sex. Littleton case law states that whatever sex the doctor put on your birth certificate is infallible and can never be changed no matter what. Should this become the context in which the Sate of Texas MUST view legal sex, it will ruin the lives of thousands of Texans. Men will be forced to assume a legal female sex and women will be forced to assume a legal male sex. From the use of official Texas identification to the use of restrooms, SB 723 can purposefully cripple the lives of thousands of Texans who suffer from a valid medical condition.

SB 723 is a cancer that will undermine the ability for every type of transgender person to function in society from the intersex child who was discovered to be male and has a female birth certificate to the transsexed young adult who, due to documented unchangeable brain morphology, undergoes medical treatment. SB will do what it seems to be intended to do: single out and wreak havoc in the lives of people suffering from a medical condition.

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Nikki Araguz , SB 723 & the Domino Effect

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Currently, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is waiting on the outcome of the Nikki Araguz case to issue an opinion on how Texas should determine the legal sex of trans people. If, through the legislative intent of SB 723, Littleton becomes the context by which all judges and state departments MUST view legal sex, Nikki Aaguz may very well lose her case.

If Nikki Araguz is declared legally male, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott will issue his opinion stating that Texas will not recognize the results of corrective genital surgery. With another pro-Littleton case ruling, an Attorney General’s opinion and the legislative intent of State law all supporting Littleton v Prange logic, Texas will become the most hostile environment for any type of trans person to live in the entire United States.

Should Texas take such an unprecedented anti-trans stance, it will only be a matter of time before the right wing in other states uses the solid anti-trans legal Texan framework to attack and erode the trans rights in other states.

SB 723 is the first domino and if it should fall, we can expect the rights of trans people throughout the State of Texas and beyond to fall as well.

Nikki Araguz understood this and it is why she went to the State Capitol to lobby against SB 723. In the following video you can see Nikki being thrown out of Sen. Williams’ office after challenging the whole “it’s just a clean-up bill” line:

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What Can Be Done

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We beat SB 723 once before and we can do it again!

All we need do is what we did last time… with one small difference: If you know of anyone living in San Antonio, get them to call the turncoat Sen. Uresti and demand that he vote AGAINST SB 723. He needs to hear from his constituents!

Priority One: Contact Sen. Uresti

Phone: (512) 463-0119

Fax: (512) 463-1017

Email: carlos.uresti@senate.state.tx.us

Web Mail: http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist19/dist19.htm#form

Demand that he VOTE and that he VOTES AGAINST SB 723!

Afterwards, call the rest of the Democratic Senators and tell them to VOTE AGAINST SB 723:

Mario Gallegos (512) 463-0106
Wendy Davis (512) 463-0110
Rodney G. Ellis (512) 463-0113
Kirk Watson (512) 463-0114
John Whitmire (512) 463-0115
Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa (512) 463-0120
Judith Zaffirini (512) 463-0121
Royce West (512) 463-0123
Leticia R. Van de Putte (512) 463-0126
Eduardo A. (Eddie) Lucio, Jr. (512) 463-0127
José R. Rodríguez (512) 463-0129

You can call day or night!

This is one of those majorly important things that will impact the lives of the people you care about. Take the 10 minutes and make the calls. PLEASE!