A judge has ruled that the marriage between a Wharton fire captain killed in the line of duty and his transgender wife was not legal, an attorney in the case said Tuesday.

Frank Mann III, one of the attorneys representing family members of Thomas Trevino Araguz III, said he had received notice from the office of State District Judge Randy Clapp that the judge ruled in his client's favor.

"It is our understanding, having read a draft order circulated by Judge Clapp, that he has ruled that any marriage between Thomas Araguz and Nikki Araguz is void as a matter of law," Mann said in a prepared statement sent by email a few minutes after 5 p.m., when the judge's office was closed.Mann said he had a proposed order from the judge but was not allowed to circulate it.

Darrell Steidley, attorney for Nikki Araguz, could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

Noel Freeman, president of the Houston Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Political Caucus, said by phone that the news was very disappointing, given that Nikki Araguz had presented legal documents, including her reissued birth certificate, showing she is female.

"Here you have a birth certificate, a legally binding document, which the court has chosen to completely ignore," Freeman said. "The transgender community jumps through a lot of legal hoops — records of sex changes, amended birth certificates - to try to live the same life that everybody else gets to live. This is a very frustrating setback."

Expecting an appeal

Lou Weaver, a Houston resident who is board president for the Transgender Foundation of America, said he hadn't seen the judge's ruling yet but understood it was based upon the fact that at the time of Araguz's birth, a medical doctor said she was male.

A person's gender should not be defined by one person at birth, said Weaver, also a board member for the local GLBT political caucus. Experts can help transgender people realize they are not in the right body and help them establish their identity as they grow up, he said.

"These are the people whose opinions we should be taking into consideration, not someone who takes one look at the outer shell," he said.

In his statement, Mann said he anticipated that Nikki Araguz's legal team would file an appeal.

"We anticipate successfully defending the court's ruling throughout the appellate process," the statement said.

Benefits at stake

Araguz has said she will appeal the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court and last week announced that she is opening her life to new scrutiny through a proposed television reality show to be called Being Nikki.

Clapp's decision is an important step in settling the legal battle over $600,000 in death benefits for heirs of Thomas Araguz. The 30-year-old father of two died in a blaze July 4 at an egg farm near Boling in Wharton County.

Clapp's decision Tuesday followed a court hearing Friday in Wharton in which three attorneys presented arguments concerning a request for summary judgment brought by Thomas Araguz's ex-wife, Heather Delgado. Delgado wanted a quick decision in a suit brought by the firefighter's mother, Simona Longoria, who argued the money should go to his sons, now ages 10 and 7, because his marriage to Nikki Araguz was not legal.

Debate over who knew

The Longoria suit asked the court to void the marriage, alleging that at the time of the wedding in August 2008, both Thomas and Nikki were males. Texas does not recognize same-sex marriages. The lawsuit also claimed that Thomas Araguz did not know his wife was born a male.

Nikki Araguz says those claims are untrue, noting that her proposed reality show is about honesty and full disclosure.

"That's how I've lived my life since I was a teenager," she said. "That is how Thomas and I were. We continued to remain a loving, married couple throughout the entire time until my husband's death."

At Friday's hearing, Edward Burwell represented Delgado, and Chad Ellis represented Longoria.

Argument for legality

Steidley, representing Nikki Araguz, argued that the marriage was legal because a 2009 change in the Texas Family Code allows a person to get a marriage license on the basis of a sex change recognized by the court.

But Burwell said the 2009 change in the family code did not overturn a 1999 Texas case, Littleton v. Prange, which is typically cited in Texas as the basis for determining a person's sex. That case held that a person's gonads, genitalia and chromosomes determine sex at birth.

"The records establish Ms. Araguz was a man prior to marriage," Burwell argued. "Shortly after marriage, she underwent gender reassignment surgery .... At the time of the marriage, Ms. Araguz was a man. That marriage must be declared void by the court as a matter of law."

The transition from one sex to another is a process, with widely accepted steps established by the Minneapolis-based World Professional Association for Transgender Health, Steidley said in court. Nikki Araguz has completed that process, he said.

Araguz has a California birth certificate, which was reissued July 27, 2010, identifying her as female.

Steidley argued that the timing of the reissued birth certificate was irrelevant.

"For all purposes, she's female going back to the date of her birth," he said. "She could have gotten that (reissued) birth certificate at any time in California."

carol.christian@chron.com