NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The first same sex marriage was reportedly performed 18 months ago, even though the practice is not legal in Tennessee.
Published reports said a transgender male married a man in Davidson County in 2007.
The transgender male, Jo T Rittenberry, claimed to have had sex re-assignment surgery and was able to get a Kentucky-issued birth certificate changed to read "female."
That is what was used to obtain the Tennessee marriage license between Rittenberry and partner Jefferey Phillips.
During a recent arrest on an unrelated fraud charge, officers booked Rittenberry into jail and determined he was, in fact, still a biological male.
Eric Hartman grew up under the watch of his uncle, Rittenberry.
"My uncle and Jefferey - they really do love each other," said Hartman. "He has always asked me to call him a female instead of uncle it is aunt instead of he it's she."
Hartman said his uncle was so desperate to marry that he faked a sex change with a letter.
"She did have the male to female gender reassignment surgery," said Hartman.
The nephew said his uncle then used the faked paperwork to get a new driver's license identifying him as a woman, and also changed his birth certificate accordingly.
"This is just one of hundreds of thousands of documents that my uncle is able to fake up," said Hartman.
More than a year ago, the documents were able to get Jo and Jefferey married at the Davidson County Clerk's Office.
"He always wanted to live as a female which that's his preference go ahead," said Hartman.
Hartman said his uncle's marriage was a sham based on forged documents. A union that proved lucrative for the couple who soaked up insurance benefits and tax breaks for more than a year.
"For at least the last 15 years he has pretty much lived in a fictitious world," said Hartman. "It's one thing to be together, but it's another thing to illegally be together on paper."
The county clerk's office said there was nothing to reverse since the marriage was fraudulent in the first place.
Even if Rittenberry did have a successful sex change, Tennessee still would not recognize the marriage as legitimate.
