The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported yesterday that the first test of the state's new constitutional ban on same-sex marriage has arrived, and it's messy. Barbara Lynn Terry, a male-to-female, pre-operative transgendered Milwaukeean, has applied for a license to marry Nicole Winstanley. Terry, who was born Ronald Francis Terry, wants to be counted as the groom, i.e., as a man, even though she's lived as a woman for many years.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge David Hansher had the awkward obligation today to determine whether Terry was man enough to qualify as a groom under state law. At the time of this writing, I don't know the outcome of the hearing. Regardless of Judge Hansher's decision, the case points up some of the absurdities of the marriage ban.

I'm all for laws that restrict marriage to two consenting adults. Age and consent are fairly easy to document, or even for an objective observer to estimate. Gender, however, is much more fluid, and not just thanks to recent medical advances. Cross-dressing, opposite-sex role-playing, and other gender-bending behaviors are well documented throughout history, even celebrated (think Joan of Arc or Harriet Tubman).

Linguists could spend years cataloguing the terminology (like "twink" or "stone") for the many nuances of identity acknowledged in gay and lesbian communities. Intersexed (or hermaphrodite) people often struggle throughout their lives with identity issues, especially when they've had a gender forcibly assigned. As much as some would like to think, gender isn't something you're simply born with; it's constructed over a lifetime through experiences, societal expectations and internal dialogue.

The proposed Terry-Winstanley marriage shines an unflattering light on our government's attempt to regulate relationships according to gender. Post-op transgendered people (that is, those who have undergone sex reassignment surgery) are getting married in states that ban same-sex marriages, such as California. Is this what the ban's promoters were hoping for, that at least one member of same-sex couples would have the decency to get an operation before going to the chapel? I don't think so. And what about intersexed people who marry? What are we supposed to do about them -- force them to choose a biological sex before the wedding? Gives a new meaning to sex before marriage, doesn't it?

This first test of Wisconsin's ban wouldn't be my choice for proving how wrong the law is. For one thing, Terry's trying to have it both ways by claiming in different settings to be a man or a woman. For another, she's got an iffy past (go ahead, Google her) and is marrying a woman young enough to be her grandchild. But I guess the marriage equality movement will have to work with it.