Separate and Not Equal

by Anonymous Shaker Couple

So, the UK government is forcing me and my wife to get a divorce this year.

My wife and I met on an internet mailing list back in the nineties. I was in the US, 16-years-old and trying to find my feet again after a failed suicide attempt. She was in the UK, had just turned 18 and was trying to find some friends and maybe some support. A few days after we became acquainted she told me that she was a trans woman. It didn't change anything for me and we continued to build a friendship.

That friendship grew into a romance over our two year internet courtship. We sent hundreds of e-mails, had a few phone calls and hung out on ICQ nearly every day. We finally got to meet in person just before my 18th birthday when she came to visit me. We had a wonderful visit and it only confirmed that we were on the right path.

After some immigration difficulties, I moved to the UK to join her. She was still considered male under UK marriage law, so we were able to get married in the winter of 1999. Shortly after I was given permanent leave to remain in the country, I gained full UK citizenship in the spring of 2004.

My wife had been on hormonal medications, had counseling and a whole host of other treatments and surgeries. The ‘end' finally came and she changed her name and got all her documents updated last year. Now she is eligible to apply for a gender recognition certificate which will allow us to correct her birth certificate.

Legally then, our marriage will be invalid because it will be between two women. Our only real option is to get a divorce and then a civil partnership.

I do not want to get a divorce. I love my wife, our home and our lives together. I hate that our divorce we will become evidence for the far right that the fabric of society is crumbling. I hate being another statistic of failure when that isn't the case. I just really hate that I have to do this.

The whole situation is breaking my heart.

This is how I know that civil partnerships are not equal – not even when they try to pass them off as 'separate but equal'. If they were, we wouldn't be getting a divorce.

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It is hard to write about this without simply echoing my wife's words; I hate that we have to do this. I recognise that this isn't the end of our relationship; just a change in legal circumstances, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Though as much as this upsets me, I feel a strong pressure to go through with it; it feels like the right thing to do. Not just for the removal of some of the dangers of being a person with an incongruous legal gender (having to carry two UK identity cards and travel on the wrong one when leaving the country, inappropriate treatment from the criminal justice system and police, the very real threat of violence from those who 'discover' my past and take exception to me) but because our ongoing marriage represents an unasked-for privilege, an inequality between us and the other queer couples we know.

Why should we be able to be married when those around us are forced to make do with civil partnerships? Either any pair of consenting adults of any combination of genders should be able to be married, or none of us should be. I would rather we were civil partners and campaigning for change than married, but only as a consequence of the ridiculous piece of legal semantics that created this situation in the first place.

The whole situation is very upsetting to both of us, and I hope we can get it over with quickly and quietly then go back to living our lives together.