(December 5, Topeka, KA) The Kansas Supreme Court is being asked to declare the marriage of a transgendered woman is legal and that she is entitled to the $2.5 million estate of her late husband.

J'Noel Gardiner was born a male and had sex change operations in 1994 and 1995. She teaches finance at Park University in Parkville, Mo.

In 1998 she met financier Marshall Gardiner, a large donor to the university. They were married four months later. She was 40 and he was 85.

Gardiner's first family is contesting the will that left his estate to J'Noel.

Kansas has long refused to recognize same-sex marriages and a 1996 law reiterated that opposition. However, the law doesn't mention the transgendered. 

Bill Modrcin, an attorney for Gardiner's first family, said the court should let the Legislature decide whether a marriage involving a transsexual is legal. He said declaring the marriage legal would raise issues about how the state determines gender before allowing a marriage.

"If two females show up and one says, 'I'm feeling particularly masculine today,' does the court grant them a license?'' he said.

J'Noel Gardiner's attorney, Sanford Krigel, warned the court that concluding his client's marriage to Marshall Gardiner was invalid would leave her the right to marry only women, already illegal in the state.