Mrs. and Mrs. Terry are man and wife (Almost too weird for words)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinal ^ | 3/23/2007 | DERRICK NUNNALLY

[flashbunny]

Confirmation of male anatomy makes marriage legal, judge rules

By DERRICK NUNNALLY

dnunnally@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 23, 2007

Despite Wisconsin's same-sex marriage ban, Barbara Lynn Terry and Nicole Winstanley carried purses into a judge's office Friday and emerged as Mrs. and Mrs. Terry.

But first, a doctor had to confirm the male anatomy of Barbara Lynn Terry, who was born a man, lives as a woman and has been undergoing hormone therapy for years.

"That's all I needed to hear," Circuit Judge David A. Hansher told the doctor, via speakerphone, after learning that gender-reassignment surgery hadn't been performed on the person who used to be Ronald Francis Terry.

The wedding - between a 58-year-old transgendered convicted rapist and a 22-year-old Australian lesbian who came to the United States last month to marry a person she'd never met - is the first in recent Wisconsin memory to be accompanied by a written statement of the judge's legal rationale for performing it.

"Since Barbara Lynn Terry is a man under the law and has taken no steps to surgically become a woman, there is no legal impediment to marrying them," Hansher wrote. "In sum, he is still a man and his bride a woman."

With that, he performed a wedding that pronounced "husband and wife" upon the couple, who spent the next few hours joking about who is the wife. "I would've signed as husband if they would've let me," Nicole Winstanley Terry said.

"It doesn't matter what the legal definition is," Barbara Lynn Terry said solemnly, while embracing her new spouse. "We know better."

The couple tried to duck photographers and television cameras that had been the only courtroom witnesses to their union, which was performed in a judge's chambers. Neither had expected publicity to come from filing a $100 marriage-license application with the Milwaukee County clerk.

Their first try for a quick courtroom wedding was denied March 16, pending a review of whether a wedding between women named Barbara and Nicole was legal, and the delay was enough for unwanted attention to arrive.

After the nuptials, the couple rode the No. 10 bus to their first married meal at the Old Country Buffet on S. 76th St. Over pasta, sausage and sauerkraut, they described how their relationship formed online in February 2006, through a Web site's outlets for stories and discussion groups.

That turned into e-mail correspondence, then instant-message conversations led to telephoning and Web cam use. Then Nicole Winstanley, still in Melbourne, told her mother that she was in love.

"She chucked a hissy fit the first time I told her," Nicole Terry said.

Then the mother got the chance to get acquainted with her daughter's new spouse.

"She's fine with it now," Nicole Terry said.

Hurdles to overcome

The gap in ages, they conceded, is monumental. Barbara Lynn Terry is older than her Australian mother-in-law; Nicole Terry is younger than her stepdaughters.

And there is a daunting biographical item the couple discussed: Ronald Francis Terry was convicted of raping a woman twice in 1970, was imprisoned and underwent psychological treatment.

Barbara Lynn Terry, who legally petitioned for a name change from Ronald Francis Terry in 1980, claims she was framed by police and convicted by an indifferent system. She claims - marriage notwithstanding - that she has never felt any attraction to women, let alone the impulse to rape one.

The younger woman believes this account.

"I've been with her over a month now," Nicole Terry said. "If she was a rapist, don't you think she would have done something to me by now?"

The couple said they'd had limited premarital physical contact. Barbara Lynn Terry feels trapped with a man's gender characteristics, which Nicole Terry finds "gross." They're both eager for surgery for Barbara Lynn Terry, though money has kept her from setting it up.

Regardless, they still cuddled, giddy with being newlyweds. "I'm sorry, I've never been married before," Nicole Terry said.

Her new spouse has, and Barbara Lynn Terry's two daughters said they reject the new marriage. They and their stepsisters only learned after their mother died in 2000 about the name change that predated their parents' 1981 wedding. Learning of their father's gender-altering desires was "shocking" - as was the rape conviction they only heard about from a newspaper article this week.

"I can't keep dealing with this," said Gloria Wilson, who is five days older than her new stepmother.

"My sisters and I have decided that we want nothing more to do with him," she said. "That's what we all decided. It's better for us."

Meanwhile, the newlyweds plan to fill out papers allowing Nicole Terry a permanent visa so she can work.

Madison attorney Leslie D. Shear, director of the family law project for the Frank J. Remington Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said immigration status isn't a done deal just because the wedding was allowed. Immigration officials will want to know the marriage wasn't just to get a visa.

"Assuming immigration isn't an issue, they should move to Massachusetts," Shear said. "She can have sex reassignment surgery there and they'll still be married."

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Wisconsin Wierdo" Ping! ;)

[rabidralph]

My head is spinning.

[rzeznikj at stout]

This. Is. Just. Sick.

pings...

[Ladysmith]

Umm...errr...

Any way we can jettison Madison out of Wisconsin??

[Rick Deckard]

I just read that article on the J-S website. I thought things like this could only happen in California.

[Global2010]

What the heck is sticking out of the young wifes back????

Does she have something misplaced.

[flashbunny]

I think the elder 'wife' is grabbing the coat of the younger woman.

[flashbunny]

This was milwaukee, which is becoming new detroit.

If you could carve out most of milwaukee (city, not county) and madison from the state, it would be a pretty good state.

[Ladysmith]

Hey, no issues here with that idea!

[flashbunny]

Ok, we send madison to minneapolis, and the city of milwaukee to detroit.

Madison takes the highway west, milwaukee takes the ferry.

[little jeremiah]

A Two-Fer. They want to destroy marriage, and this is a great tactic. Looks to me as though this may be a set-up. Even if the young woman from Australia is an insane lesbian, she'd have to be drugged and hogtied to marry the thing that she's supposedly in love with.

They want to destroy human civilization, and the fact tha the judge went along with this shows they're succeeding pretty well. When all meaning has been removed from "family" and "marriage" this means human civilization is about to implode.

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[ElkGroveDan]

"In sum, he is still a man

Always has been, and always will be until the day he dies no matter what mutilation some depraved surgeon does to him.

[Malsua]

The one on the right has a helluva hump. Related to John Merrick?

[trisham]

But first, a doctor had to confirm the male anatomy of Barbara Lynn Terry, who was born a man, lives as a woman and has been undergoing hormone therapy for years.

************

Oy. I'm so confused.

[jonrick46]

I wonder if the homone therapy has caused his/her pregnancy?

[Balke]

How exactly did the judge screw up? As you said, DNA does not change. This is technically one man and one woman, albeit a very disturbed man and woman. I don't see how the judge could have any legal ground to deny them a marriage license, unless Wisconsin has some sort of mental fitness requirement to get married. The judge was just doing his job.

What I wonder is, if he has the surgery to become a woman, does their marriage then become annulled? Probably not, and that's when the real court battle will start up and you will see real judicial activism

[tiger-one]

What legal ground did the judge have to accept the doctors testimony? If you are in combat and your manhood was ripped off, would that make you a woman? Female DNA is different than male DNA

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I could live with that, too.

However, we need some Chemo & Radiation...the Cancer of Socialism is spreading throughout our state.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Crazy, ain't it?

[flashbunny]

And the republicans didn't help at all when they had control of the legislature. I wonder if they've realized why they lost, or if they're just going to blame it on iraq.

I'd better buy more lottery tickets. I can't stand this state anymore.