(via khou.com)
WHARTON, Texas—Nikki Araguz, the transgender widow of a Wharton firefighter who’s battling his family for her share of his death benefits, says she can prove her husband was aware of her past as a man.
She showed 11 News an e-mail, purportedly written by her late husband, Thomas Araguz, on the day of her sex-change operation.
She said the letter is proof that he knew all about the surgery and supported her, because they got married two months later.
But Thomas Araguz’s family claims Nikki shouldn’t get any of the $600,000 in death benefits.
They claim the couple’s marriage is invalid, since Nikki Araguz was born a man.
“This is less about money than it is about the civil rights of my husband and I to legally be recognized as we recognized each other, and as all of our friends and neighbors did, as a heterosexual male and female married couple,” she said.
Records show that Thomas Araguz designated Nikki as the beneficiary of a $60,000 pension fund.
Her attorneys claim Texas law allows someone to present certification of a sex change as a form of ID for a marriage license, therefore Texas law must allow such a marriage.
“[Nikki] and Thomas had a legal and formal marriage up until the day he was taken from her in July of 2010,” attorney Phyllis Randolph Frye said.
But attorneys for the firefighter’s family say he did not know his wife used to be a man up until a few months before he died.
And they believe the Texas Constitution is clear when it says “a license may not be issued for the marriage of persons of the same sex.”
“The law in Texas specifically states that your designation or gender identification, so to speak, is defined at birth. So you are what you’re born,” Ed Burwell, an attorney representing Thomas Araguz’s ex-wife, said.
Clearly, both Nikki Araguz and her late husband’s family feel they have Texas law on their side.
Nikki’s most recent documents were filed in court on Monday.
It could be months – if not longer – before a Wharton County judge decides who will win
