Citation(s) 9 S.W.3d 223 End date October 27, 1999 | Decision by Phil Hardberger | |
Court Fourth Court of Appeals of Texas Full case name Christie Lee LITTLETON, Individually and as Next Heir of Jonathon Mark Littleton, Appellant, v. Dr. Mark PRANGE, Appellee. Decided October 27, 1999 (1999-10-27) People also search for Gay Student Services v. Texas A&M University | ||
Littleton v. Prange, 9 S.W.3d 223 (1999), is a 1999 lawsuit that voided the marriage between a man and a transsexual woman, Christie Lee Littleton. The Fourth Court of Appeals of Texas ruled that, for purposes of Texas law, Littleton was considered male, and that Littleton's marriage to a man was therefore invalid because Texas law does not recognize same-sex marriage.
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Background
Christie Lee Littleton was assigned male at birth, in San Antonio, Texas in 1952. She dropped out of school at age 15 and began living as a woman. In 1977 she began taking female hormones and legally changed her name to Christie Lee Cavazos. In 1980, she completed her surgical reassignment and had her state-issued identification changed to female. In the 1990s she met and married Jonathan Mark Littleton in Kentucky, later moving to San Antonio, where she worked at a salon and he worked as a window washer.
Case
After her husband's death, Christie Lee Littleton brought a medical malpractice suit against her husband's doctor, Mark Prange. The defense attorney argued that the marriage was invalid because Christie Lee Littleton was a biological male. On appeal, Chief Justice Phil Hardberger relied on the fact that "Texas statutes do not allow same-sex marriages" and that "male chromosomes do not change with either hormonal treatment or sex reassignment surgery" in handing down his judgment that "Christie Littleton is a male. As a male, Christie cannot be married to another male. Her marriage to Jonathon was invalid, and she cannot bring a cause of action as his surviving spouse."
The decision made it also legal for a cis woman to marry a trans woman who had undergone sex reassignment surgery and transitioned to female as long as the two partners were assigned opposite sexes at birth.
In fiction
Littleton v. Prange is cited in the fictional 2010 Drop Dead Diva episode "Queen of Mean". In the episode, lawyers for a post-operative trans woman cite the case to prove that her marriage to a cis woman, entered into before she transitioned, was valid, allowing her to inherit her deceased wife's estate.