Family Attorney
Settlement reached in transsexual custody case
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A Florida judge approved the settlement Friday between Michael Kantaras, who was born Margo Kantaras, and his ex-wife, Linda Forsythe, ending a seven-year dispute that went all the way to the Florida Supreme Court and back before the intervention of “The Dr. Phil Show” raised the prospect of compromise. After two and a half days of guided mediation, the couple agreed on custody terms for Matthew, 16, Linda’s child from a previous marriage, who Michael adopted, and Irina, 13, born through artificial insemination from Michael’s brother. The teenagers will spend four more evenings with their mother than their father each month, although both parents will share decision-making authority in their lives, according to their lawyers. The international media spectacle surrounding the case often lost sight of the children as it focused on the opposing interest groups who used the case as a flashpoint for their issues. But now the parties are united in their characterization of the settlement as a prime example of a divorced couple putting the needs of their children ahead of their own. “The time is now to bring stability to the lives of the children,” said Linda Forsythe’s lawyer, Mathew Staver, also president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, a Christian firm dedicated to “advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family.” “If these two can reach a settlement, anyone can,” said Michael Kantaras’ lawyer, Karen Doering of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who also served as co-counsel in a 2002 three-week custody trial. “This couple had as many complications as you’ll ever see in a custody case, so I give a lot of credit to both sides for coming together and working toward a settlement,” she said. The Kantaras v. Kantaras child custody bench trial ended in an unprecedented ruling in favor of Michael Kantaras, who underwent surgery in 1987 to remove his breasts and ovaries and began taking hormones before he met and married his ex-wife, Linda, in 1989. “Michael has always, for a lifetime, had a self-identity as a male,” Pasco County Judge Gerard O’Brien wrote in an 809-page decision. “Chromosomes are only one factor in the determination of sex, and they do not overrule gender or self-identity, which is the true test or identifying mark of sex.” In 2004, the Florida Supreme Court reversed the ruling, upholding Forsythe’s claim that the marriage was null and void because her ex-husband was still a woman and same-sex marriages are illegal in Florida. The unanimous decision went further to establish the precedent that a marriage could not exist between two people of the same birth gender. With the marriage dissolved and Michael Kantaras’ right to assert parental authority placed in limbo, the case was remanded to trial court. More : edition.cnn.com |
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