Gay Marriage Ruling Offers Hope to Transgender Widow

Five years ago this Friday, Capt. Thomas Araguz III of the Wharton Volunteer Fire Department died fighting a massive blaze at an egg farm in Boling.

Araguz’s wife, Nikki Araguz Loyd, was on a business trip and learned of her husband’s death from another firefighter’s wife on social media. When Araguz Loyd returned to Wharton—60 miles southwest of Houston—on the morning of July 4, 2010, Thomas Araguz’s family prevented her from seeing her stepchildren.

A day after Thomas Araguz’s funeral, his mother—Simona Longoria—filed a lawsuit against Araguz Loyd, seeking to deny her firefighter death benefits. The lawsuit, which was later joined by Thomas Araguz’s first wife, Heather Delgado, alleged that because Araguz Loyd, who’s transgender, was born male, the couple’s 2008 marriage was void under Texas’ same-sex marriage bans.

The case, Delgado v. Araguz, vaulted Araguz Loyd into the national spotlight, and led to a lengthy court battle that has invoked both transgender rights and marriage equality. The case is currently on appeal to the Texas Supreme Court. However, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, Araguz Loyd hopes it will soon be decided in her favor.

Read more: http://www.texasobserver.org/gay-marriage-ruling-offers-hope-to-transgender-widow/

[font color=330099]I take back my earlier statements when I moved here that "nothing never happens in Wharton."[/font]