The Texas Republican Party’s 2012 platform reads:

We support the definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal and moral commitment only between a natural man and a natural woman, which is the foundational unit of a healthy society, and we oppose the assault on marriage by judicial activists.

This may seem pretty straightforward, in that their obvious intention was “no gays allowed”, but it’s actually not that simple. What defines a “natural man” and a “natural woman” for the purposes of marriage? Everyone is “natural”, after all, but as far as these things go, this is one of the slights that’s so common it barely stings anymore. Do they mean someone who was assigned male, or female, at birth? Or do they mean cis men and cis women only?

Their platform document (PDF) makes no explicit reference to trans people. Given their insistence that “natural” men and women are the only ones eligible for marriage, how do they feel about trans people getting married? Do they support allowing trans people to change their legal gender? If not, are they comfortable with the idea of same-sex couples where one partner is trans being allowed to marry, since they’re still legally considered a “natural” man or woman? And where does this leave intersex people?

Does the Texas Republican Party even know what “intersex” means? Or “cisgender”, for that matter?