Family Attorney

Until three years ago, Michael Kantaras mowed his lawn on weekends, played Santa at his children’s school and lived like any other husband and father – almost.

Since then, Mr. Kantaras’s marriage has faltered. Now, a custody battle with his wife, Linda, has become a painful and public reminder that Mr. Kantaras, a 42-year-old bakery manager, was not exactly the typical family man he went to extraordinary lengths to become.

Since the breakup, Ms. Kantaras has exposed a secret that even the couple’s 12-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter never knew: Michael Kantaras was, until 1987, a woman who was born Margo Kantaras.

Ms. Kantaras contends that, even though she knew of Mr. Kantaras’s sex change before becoming involved with him, he was never a man and therefore their marriage and his adoption of the children are invalid.

The case raises legal questions that experts and scholars say Florida laws do not address. Is Michael Kantaras legally the man he claimed to be on his marriage license and in adoption papers, or is he a woman living as a man?

The judge assigned to the case must address that question before settling what the family considers the critical issue: whether Mr. Kantaras was ever a father.

‘’Basically Florida law does not permit same-sex marriage, and the question is whether this is a same-sex marriage or not,'’ said Judge Gerard O’Brien of Pasco-Pinellas Circuit Court, who is presiding over the case. The case could make Florida law and establish a legal precedent for transsexuals in other states. ‘’Everything flows accordingly under the initial question of was Michael, as a transsexual, a man.'’

The three-week trial ended on Feb. 8, but Judge O’Brien did not expect to issue a ruling for months. The Kantarases are seeking a divorce, and each wants primary custody of the children.

‘’I have been a judge for 20 years, and I have had other fascinating family law as well as criminal law cases, but never anything like this,'’ Judge O’Brien said in an interview. ‘’I'm afraid I’m going to be living at the law library.'’

Law books may provide little guidance in this case, legal experts say. ‘’I honestly believe there is no legal precedent for this in the state of Florida,'’ said Caroline K. Black, chairwoman-elect of the family law section of the Florida Bar Association. ‘’I do not envy this judge at all.'’

While the Kantarases await the ruling, they remain bitterly divided by the end of a marriage that they once believed was part of a traditional family.

‘’I have always felt children need both a mother and a father,'’ Mr. Kantaras said in an interview at his lawyer’s office here.

Ms. Kantaras, 33, a substitute teacher, did not return several calls for comment to her home in nearby Holiday and to her lawyer’s office.

The circumstances that thrust the Kantarases into a nationally televised court battle began even before they met in 1988 and were compounded by their decision to create a family.

As an adolescent in suburban Youngstown, Ohio, Margo Kantaras came to detest her budding breasts and the softness in her face, anything that reminded her she was not a boy. So 17 years ago, she underwent psychological counseling and medical tests and took hormone shots to begin the transition to Michael.

‘’It was probably after my second shot that the voice started to change and features started to change,'’ recalled Mr. Kantaras, who today is stocky and broad shouldered and has a mustache. ‘’I was very, very ready for it, very excited.'’

In 1987, Margo had her breasts, ovaries and uterus removed. Although her birth certificate listed her sex as female, her parents from that point on considered their daughter a son, they testified at the trial.

Linda Forsythe entered Michael Kantaras’s life in 1988, when they began working together at an Albertson’s supermarket in Florida. When Mr. Kantaras’s feelings became more than platonic, he told her about the surgery. ‘’She thought I was lying,'’ he said.

The relationship continued, even though she was pregnant by a boyfriend who had recently left her, according to court testimony. Mr. Kantaras was in the delivery room in June of 1989 when she gave birth to a son. The couple married in a civil ceremony the next month, and Mr. Kantaras adopted the baby in September of that year.

More : query.nytimes.com