I hadn’t thought how important marriage equality might to transgender people, more so than homosexuals having equal rights to get married. In addition to that they have a unique problem under current marriage law.
If someone who is married changes gender they either can’t legally change their gender identity status, or they can’t remain married, because same sex marriage is not possible.
A GayNZ post Trans marriage equality by Diane Sparkes explains this.
When a person who changes their gender to that of the opposite gender i.e. male to female or female to male, they have the legal right to make changes to all public records, to change their birth certificate, in order to reflect their chosen gender identity.
That’s fine, as long as they aren’t married.
Under the present law when one party to a legal marriage changes their gender identity, the state requires that before the transitioning partner can achieve true legal gender identity status, the marriage is dissolved. In the case where neither party wishes to dissolve their marriage, both parties find themselves in a no win situation. Each partner is forced by the state to divorce the other even though love and support has maintained the relationship through arguably one of the most difficult situations any married couple will ever face.
The law does not actually demand divorce or enforce dissolution; however should the transitioning partner make no application to obtain their legal status, they become further disadvantaged as failing to achieve ones legal status carries many uncertain issues. For example a male who transitions to female will still be male in the eyes of the law and vice versa!
In effect, for proper legal recognition of their gender status, current marriage law forces a divorce.
To friends, family and society the couple after transition, still present themselves as a couple as they have always done. The law however, because of current legislation is unable to make the necessary changes allowing the transgender partner their right to be legally recognised because they are still legally married.
Passing this bill will remove a serious injustice placed upon the married transgender individual, because it will no longer be a requirement of the state for the dissolving of the marriage.
The transgender person will then be able to achieve legally their new gender identity, stay married, and maintain the family unit. Then and only then will true equality to exist.
The simple solution is to enable marriage equality.
As Diane also points out, when a spouse wishes to change gender the marriage will often break down anyway. But marriage equality would remove one major complication in what can be a very difficult time.