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Texas Senate passes bill with serious consequences for transgender Texans

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Texas's State Senate has passed Senator Donna Campbell's SB 1218, which states that no marriage license can be obtained with a document that lacks a photo.  This includes an affidavit of sex change. This bill, in other words, means that many transgender people living in the state of Texas will be legally prohibited from marrying an opposite-sex partner. Campbell says that the purpose of the bill is merely to require a photo be shown to get a marriage license. However, with many transgender persons not having easy access to corrected legal documents and updated photo identification, this bill would clearly prohibit them from obtaining a marriage license. As stated by Daniel Williams, field organizer with Equality Texas, "Donna Campbell's bill is targeting communities that aren't likely to have forms of ID."

As is often the case, those most affected by anti-trans bias here won't be those with access to good healthcare, a strong support system or legal representation, it will be those who have the least capacity to overcome all of the discriminatory roadblocks that trans people face.   

The topic of marriage equality is predominately focused on same-sex couples, but this story and others (like that of a transgender woman in Hong Kong who recently won her case to marry her partner) have shown that oppsite-sex couples, in which one person is transgender, can also easily be targeted by opponents of LGBT equality. This bill still needs to be accepted for consideration and then passed by the House, which ends its session next week.

 


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