It's Happened Before: Transgender Couple

HOUSTON - The judge hearing testimony from the transgender widow of a Wharton firefighter said Friday he’d never heard of a case like this.

But last year, an appellate court ruled in a very similar case, here in Harris County.

It was the tale of a Houston-area couple named Andrew and Jennifer.

Their marriage was like a lot of others: done apart—not by death—but by disagreement.

Jennifer Jack and Andrew Mireles were divorced in 2005. But three years later, the exes were back in family court as Jack asked a judge to vacate their divorce and void their seven-year marriage.

She said she had just made a mind-bending discovery on a page of photos from Jersey Village High School.

“There was a picture and it was a girl in a yearbook,” Jennifer Jack told FOX 26. “And it was Andrew.”

Only…Andrew was Phyllis Mireles, a female by birth certificate.

And despite the male hormones, Andrew Mireles was still, physically, a woman.

“You don't just go, ‘oh well, because we're having problems you must be a woman,’” explained Jennifer Jack. “You don't go there.”

But Andrew had a different story.

He said Jennifer—perhaps tipped off by their strange sex life—put the pieces together about 18-months into their relationship.

“We talked about it or discussed it,” said Andrew, “and then we decided to stay together, or she decided to stay with me.”

The judge’s decision was different; because both were born female, she ruled the marriage illegal.

“In Texas, that law is not going to change,” said FOX 26 Legal Analyst Chris Tritico, adding that ruling stood up, on appeal.

“The First Court of Appeals said the trial court was right: this was a fraud marriage from the beginning, therefore it was a void marriage from the beginning.”

In the Mireles case, she claimed she didn’t know, and he claimed she did.

In the case of the Wharton firefighter’s widow, the roles may be reversed.

But the legal precedent likely won’t be, said Tritico.

“What happened in this case is probably what's going to happen in Wharton. At the end of the day they're going to rule that that marriage was void.”

And if the marriage is void, so are claims based on the marriage, like death benefits for a surviving spouse.

So goes the argument. But it’s what ultimately happens in court that counts.