A firefighter died battling a blaze and now his family is suing to prevent his wife from receiving death benefits. The dead firefighter's parents are arguing that Nikki Araguz isn't entitled to her late husband's death benefits because Nikki was born a man. Texas views a marriage between a man and a trans woman—between a man and someone who is legally a woman—as no different than a same-sex marriage and Texas doesn't recognize same-sex marriages.

Texas doesn't want gays and lesbians undergoing sex reassignment surgery just so they can get marriage licenses and undermine the sacred sanctity of opposite marriage.

Okay, so the parents of this dead firefighter are clearly exploiting an anti-gay and trans-phobic state law to deny death benefits to their son's widow. But here's where things gets really messy: Thomas Araguz's parents claim that their son didn't know his wife—a woman he married less than two years ago—was born a man until shortly before he died. According to lawyers representing his parents, Thomas Araguz separated from Nikki Araguz immediately after learning that his wife had been born a man. And Thomas Araguz's aren't trying to grab their son's death benefits for themselves: their son had two children by his first wife and they want their son's death benefits to go to his children.

It's a mess. More here and here.