• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Couple files suit for transsexual discrimination

A lawsuit filed Monday against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services alleges the agency discriminated against a Filipino couple when it denied the husband’s legal residency because his wife had a sex change operation nearly 24 years ago.

Jiffy Javenella, 27, entered the country as a legal resident in 2001 as Donita Ganzon’s fiance and applied for permanent resident status after marrying Ganzon later that year.

But during interviews with immigration agents earlier this year, Ganzon, 58, revealed that she had undergone a male-to-female sex change operation in 1981.

Within three weeks, the agency denied Javenella’s application for permanent residency and revoked his working papers, according to the couple’s lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a letter to Javenella explaining its decision that “currently, no federal statute or regulation addresses specifically the question whether someone born a man or a woman can surgically change his or her sex.”

Governor to receive award in Texas

SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to fly to the heart of heavily Republican Texas on Tuesday, where he will receive an award from former President George H. W. Bush and raise funds for an as-yet-unannounced re-election bid.

Schwarzenegger will accept the 2004 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service at Texas A&M University, where Bush’s presidential library is located.

Previous winners of the award include former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who is the uncle of Schwarzenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver.

The Bush Library announced that Gov. Schwarzenegger would be this year’s award recipient days after he made a high-profile campaign visit to Ohio.

Compiled from Bruin wire reports.