sex and gender

"Sex is what you have between your legs. Gender is what you have between your ears."

That quote is from this lady lawyer who joined the legal team of Philip Abramowitz to defend Donita Ganzon and her husband Jiffy Javellana. I attended their press conference this morning in Sherman Oaks.

As a backgrounder: I covered the Donita Ganzon case when it first erupted last December when she, together with her husband Jiffy Javellana, sued the United States immigration service. The couple is seeking a federal court order upholding the validity of their marriage and challenging the United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Service (BCIS) refusal to recognize their marriage.


Donita Ganzon, 58 and her
husband Jiffy Javellana, 27

It gets interesting. Donita Ganzon is a post-operative transsexual. She was born in Bataan as 'Celedonio Secusana Ganzon.' She arrived in the U.S. in 1974. She underwent sex-change operation 1981 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1987 . Her naturalization certificate, issued by the then-INS, recognized her change of sex from male to female. She is 58 years old.

December 2000. Donita met Jiffy Javellana when she went to the Philippines for a vacation. Jiffy was a friend of one of Donita's nephews. They talked. He sang a song for her. They became inseparable. They fell in love.

Donita revealed the truth to Jiffy about her being a transsexual the first night that they became intimate withe ach other. To her amazement, he did not run away. She said he did not even flinch. "You're more beautiful than any other woman," Jiffy told her. Donita was in heaven.

Jiffy arrived in the U.S. in 2001. The couple got married in Las Vegas later that year. He then applied for permanent residency.

Bottomline: The BCIS denied his application based on its policy of prohibiting recognition of transgender marriages. Immigration officials cited the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

The lawyers called for the presscon to announce that Debra Davies-Soshoux will be helping in the case. She delivered a lecture on sex and gender issues. Asked on why she thinks this case is important, she replied, before dropping the bombshell. "Because I am like her, too," she said, pointing at Donita.

If I didn't know any better, I would have fallen off my chair. But a little tweety told me about it a day before the presscon. It was like watching Alias spoiled. [Snark fans call people who, unknowingly or not, find out key plot twists through spoilers, as, well...spoiled.]

Who could have thought such a twist? Certainly not the bright minds at Boston Legal or The Practice. Proves one thing: Truth is Stranger Than Fiction.