Which visa should we apply for

[SalishSea 17,842]

4 hours ago, Luckycuds said:

You are too married for a k1.
You are a man and she identifies as a female and her passport is female? What’s the problem with getting married in your country then if one of you is male and the other female? 

From what OP has said, I think the issue is that his fiancee does not have a second piece of photo ID that corresponds to the gender on her passport.  I wonder how strict that policy actually is.  A US passport surpasses any US state driver's license in terms of identification anyway.

[Quarknase 1,072]

I think the issue is not wether there is one or multiple forms of ID with the correct (female) gender. I might be mistaken but it would not make a difference if 1 or 20 forms of ID reflect the new gender - as a US Citizen there is record of the gender at birth and it also doesn't matter WITHIN the US since it's legal here.

 

The question is if the US would accept or not accept a marriage certificate

1/ that was obtained with a legal document stating the gender female

2/ by a human that went through a gender change

3/ which is "not a thing" in the country of marriage (meaning if they saw the persons birth certificate they would probably insist that she's male, because born male)

4/ and would not have been granted based on the original gender (no same sex marriage allowed).

 

Of which 3 I believe is the part that none of us can answer, and how this will be interpreted from a US POV. Would marriage without disclosing the fact be considered misrepresentation? Or is it totally fine to marry presenting the present gender and not the previous one? The circumstance that a person born in said country would have not been able to obtain the current gender (and therefore it would be an illegal same sex marriage), and how the US, who allows for gender change, deals with it, is the big question.

 

[SalishSea 17,842]

2 minutes ago, Quarknase said:

I think the issue is not wether there is one or multiple forms of ID with the correct (female) gender. I might be mistaken but it would not make a difference if 1 or 20 forms of ID reflect the new gender - as a US Citizen there is record of the gender at birth and it also doesn't matter WITHIN the US since it's legal here.

 

The question is if the US would accept or not accept a marriage certificate

1/ that was obtained with a legal document stating the gender female

2/ by a human that went through a gender change

3/ which is "not a thing" in the country of marriage (meaning if they saw the persons birth certificate they would probably insist that she's male, because born male)

4/ and would not have been granted based on the original gender (no same sex marriage allowed).

 

Of which 3 I believe is the part that none of us can answer, and how this will be interpreted from a US POV. Would marriage without disclosing the fact be considered misrepresentation? Or is it totally fine to marry presenting the present gender and not the previous one? The circumstance that a person born in said country would have not been able to obtain the current gender (and therefore it would be an illegal same sex marriage), and how the US, who allows for gender change, deals with it, is the big question.

 

The US will accept a legal marriage certificate from overseas locations.  The OP marrying his partner in the US would be legal in all 50 states, regardless of the genders.

 

The issue is the legality of the marriage in OP's home country itself.  So if the requirement is two pieces of state-issued photo ID, and one of those is a mis-match on the gender, the local jurisdiction may not accept it.

 

Maybe a neighboring country would not require anything more than her passport as ID/

[Quarknase 1,072]

2 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

The US will accept a legal marriage certificate from overseas locations.  The OP marrying his partner in the US would be legal in all 50 states, regardless of the genders.

 

The issue is the legality of the marriage in OP's home country itself.  So if the requirement is two pieces of state-issued photo ID, and one of those is a mis-match on the gender, the local jurisdiction may not accept it.

 

Maybe a neighboring country would not require anything more than her passport as ID/

Yes.

Plus: Will it be considered misrepresentation by the US, if the gender presented on ID is not a valid gender in the country of marriage (because gender change is not valid in Sierra Leone). Right? Because OP stated that he can obtain marriage certificate with passport only, but is concerned if it will be the wrong thing to do.

 

[SalishSea 17,842]

11 minutes ago, Quarknase said:

Yes.

Plus: Will it be considered misrepresentation by the US, if the gender presented on ID is not a valid gender in the country of marriage (because gender change is not valid in Sierra Leone). Right? Because OP stated that he can obtain marriage certificate with passport only, but is concerned if it will be the wrong thing to do.

 

"Valid gender in Sierra Leone" isn't really the issue, but the conflicting information between her two types of ID is. The OP's wife's US passport states that her gender is female.  No chance of misrepresentation.  For the purposes of USCIS/NVC etc, the USC in question is female.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Jorgedig

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

6 minutes ago, Quarknase said:

Yes.

Plus: Will it be considered misrepresentation by the US, if the gender presented on ID is not a valid gender in the country of marriage (because gender change is not valid in Sierra Leone). Right? Because OP stated that he can obtain marriage certificate with passport only, but is concerned if it will be the wrong thing to do.

 

I don’t think that argument holds water. If the US officially considers her female and has issued a passport saying so, and Sierra Leone grants her entry as a female, then that’s all that matters.  Unless you can find an actual law that forbids transgender people from entering Sierra Leone. And if all Sierra Leone requires of a foreigner to marry is a passport, then they have complied with requirements. Without reading back, I I don’t recall OP saying anything about needing a birth certificate in SL, the concern was about the birth certificate being used as the basis for the i130 petition.

[Quarknase 1,072]

7 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

The OP's wife's US passport states that her gender is female.  No chance of misrepresentation.  For the purposes of USCIS/NVC etc, the USC in question is female.

Depends how the country looks at it. Just looked it up. Gender change is in fact not legal in Sierra Leone. Which holds the question if her entry with passport as female would be considered misrepresentation as well.

[Quarknase 1,072]

10 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

I don’t think that argument holds water. If the US officially considers her female and has issued a passport saying so, and Sierra Leone grants her entry as a female, then that’s all that matters.  Unless you can find an actual law that forbids transgender people from entering Sierra Leone. And if all Sierra Leone requires of a foreigner to marry is a passport, then they have complied with requirements. Without reading back, I I don’t recall OP saying anything about needing a birth certificate in SL, the concern was about the birth certificate being used as the basis for the i130 petition.

We can agree to disagree I think

I understand why OP is concerned and wants to look at it in all it's complexity.

I hope for them that it's as easy as stated, but the butterfly effect based on the small question if the gender on the passport is considered valid in Sierra Leone can be big.

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

15 minutes ago, Quarknase said:

Depends how the country looks at it. Just looked it up. Gender change is in fact not legal in Sierra Leone. Which holds the question if her entry with passport as female would be considered misrepresentation as well.

If the wife did not undergo a gender change in Sierra Leone, then the fact that it is not legal there is irrelevant.  Unless: Did you find a law that bans transgender people from entering under identification as their new gender?

[Quarknase 1,072]

17 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

If the wife did not undergo a gender change in Sierra Leone, then the fact that it is not legal there is irrelevant.  Unless: Did you find a law that bans transgender people from entering under identification as their new gender?

That's exactly the question I stated 2 posts ago. That what counts is if Sierra Leone accepts the gender in the passport, or if they consider it misrepresentation.

[Ibrahim3725 2]

3 hours ago, Quarknase said:

I think the issue is not wether there is one or multiple forms of ID with the correct (female) gender. I might be mistaken but it would not make a difference if 1 or 20 forms of ID reflect the new gender - as a US Citizen there is record of the gender at birth and it also doesn't matter WITHIN the US since it's legal here.

 

The question is if the US would accept or not accept a marriage certificate

1/ that was obtained with a legal document stating the gender female

2/ by a human that went through a gender change

3/ which is "not a thing" in the country of marriage (meaning if they saw the persons birth certificate they would probably insist that she's male, because born male)

4/ and would not have been granted based on the original gender (no same sex marriage allowed).

 

Of which 3 I believe is the part that none of us can answer, and how this will be interpreted from a US POV. Would marriage without disclosing the fact be considered misrepresentation? Or is it totally fine to marry presenting the present gender and not the previous one? The circumstance that a person born in said country would have not been able to obtain the current gender (and therefore it would be an illegal same sex marriage), and how the US, who allows for gender change, deals with it, is the big question.

 

Yes that's the question 

[Ibrahim3725 2]

3 hours ago, Jorgedig said:

The US will accept a legal marriage certificate from overseas locations.  The OP marrying his partner in the US would be legal in all 50 states, regardless of the genders.

 

The issue is the legality of the marriage in OP's home country itself.  So if the requirement is two pieces of state-issued photo ID, and one of those is a mis-match on the gender, the local jurisdiction may not accept it.

 

Maybe a neighboring country would not require anything more than her passport as ID/

We can use passport alone to get marriage registered. She doesn't need anything else

[Ibrahim3725 2]

2 hours ago, Quarknase said:

That's exactly the question I stated 2 posts ago. That what counts is if Sierra Leone accepts the gender in the passport, or if they consider it misrepresentation.

My country accept what they see on her passport. She is very discreet and they never think anything other then she is what appears on her passport 

[Ibrahim3725 2]

3 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

If the wife did not undergo a gender change in Sierra Leone, then the fact that it is not legal there is irrelevant.  Unless: Did you find a law that bans transgender people from entering under identification as their new gender?

No there is no law banning transgender people from entering here. There are laws that ban same sex marriage,  and male to male relationships is band but female to female is not

[Quarknase 1,072]

1 hour ago, Ibrahim3725 said:

My country accept what they see on her passport. She is very discreet and they never think anything other then she is what appears on her passport 

There you have your answer  If they accept the gender in the passport and would not change their mind if they knew that she was legally male in the past, then everything should be fine.