News Item:
Sex change doesn’t stop alimony
That’s what a Florida judge has ruled. A man’s ex-wife underwent a gender switch, and changed her name from Julia to Julio. The ex-husband logically felt that since he hadn’t married a Julio, he was no longer responsible for alimony, but the judge didn’t agree, citing a previous Ohio case where the court upheld an alimony agreement.
What’s your take on this? Ethically, maybe even morally, the changed ex is still the same person, just physically altered. What about legally though, according to the ‘letter’ of the law.  A marriage license, and decree, as a legal document, is basically a contract, is it not? On paper, looking at the marriage as a contract, this guy married Julia, not Julio. Julia legally changed her name to Julio. Julia’s signature is written in ink, not Julio’s. The guy signed a contract with Julia, not Julio, so is the contract still binding?
I guess the argument can be made that she just called herself Julia, even though she felt she was a Julio the whole time, but legally, should that factor in? This seems to be a true case of apples and oranges here.
If Larry [the ex-husband in the case] signs a contract to buy a boatload of apples, and gets oranges instead, is he obliged to pay for the oranges? You could say yes, because he took delivery. On the other hand, even well after delivery, he still thought the oranges were apples. It wasn’t till much later, in fact not till after the marital store had gone out of business, that he found out the apples were really oranges, which explained why apple sales had been so slow. On the flip side, is the apple salesman [now Julio] who sold Larry the oranges, still entitled to compensation, or guilty of breach of contract?
Sticky, sticky, sticky situation.
Full Story: CBS News
Cartoon from Sid in the City
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4 users commented in " When your ex-wife becomes your ex-husband "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackA women signs her marriage contract in her married name… if a wife just changed back to her maiden name that would not violate the alimony, so I assume it would take even more than a full name change to violate it…
Some have argued that it decreased Julio’s chances of marrying and therefor lessen chances of it ending (since FL doesn’t recongise sex-changes for purposes of marrying Julio would only have a choice or marrying a man), but a ex could have plastic surgery, eat tubs of icecream or do various other things that would decrease their desireability in the biological opposite sex…. Alimony isn’t meant to force someone to marry someone else quickly, it just makes no sense that someone would still pay alimony to someone remarried, thats why the clause is in there.
And technically Julio will always be an ex-*wife*… isn’t that interesting… Julio was biologically a women during the marriage… And alimony is based on various factors of which *none* is based on happenings/behaviours/events after the divorce, except marriage or death.
I personally think in most cases Alimony is anti-quated, but …. I think Julio’s ex-husband is stuck.
Stuck he is, SK, because according to the judge, and the appeals court in the similar Ohio case, Larry still has to write that check every month.
^ thats what I meant *laughs*
As for Julio possibly being guilty of breach of contract… maybe in a state where sex-changes are recongised… but even then does that invalidate what Julio brought to the table, and sacrificed, to a near 20 yr marriage? Lots of married people lie about things in marriage… is it any more fradulant? again… maybe in a state where sex-changes are recongised… and where gay marriage is banned… I’d like to see this kind of case brought up there…
Certainly an interesting situation.
I just thought of something else… what if Julio (whether remained Julia or not) had gone to MA or Canada and got hitched to some women… Since FL doesn’t recongise gay marriages I bet that wouldn’t violate the terms of the alimony either… gawd the laws are going to have to be updated sooner or later as this happens more and more.
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